Vampire Night
by deyavi
Summary: The sequel to Silent Night. A return of old friends, new enemies, and consequences that reach into eternity. COMPLETE!
1. Prologue

Author's notes: Ooook. Well, I was planning on waiting until I had finished doing another story to do this buuuuut . . . oh well. Anyway, I am glad you all liked Silent Night, so I hope you like this fic just as much! So here it is, the SEQUEL to Silent Night! The first few chapters will be short, probably. If you know anything about me you'll know I usually just make it up as I go. Muahahaaaaaa!

In this time of need, he let go. He relinquished control of his body to his instinct, and, like an observer on the sidelines, he watched the battle unfold. Blood spilled everywhere, all over the ground, all over him. A maniacal grin crossed his face. His crimson eyes flashed as moonlight poured down on him from behind the thick clouds, illuminating his blood-soaked figure. Laughter echoed in the street he stood on. He barely recognized it as his own. Finally, when his enemy was gone, he forced into submission the torrent of his lethal survival instinct. Running a hand through his silver hair, he cast his gaze to the sky. The fog of bloodlust in his eyes disappeared. Blood dripped from his clothes, his hands, his face, and as he began absently licking blood from his hand, he pitied any vampire that was not enjoying a moment like this. With a small smile, Malakai wiped the street that he had turned into a battlefield clean of evidence. And then, without any further thought on the matter, or even the slightest tinge of regret, he walked away. Such was life. Or, un-life, rather.


	2. Chapter 1

Author's notes: Hey . You know what? Malakai is a dork. A big, fat, dorky dork. Anyway, buh bye, and yeah. Cya. CHAPTER TWO!

With a sigh, the previously sleeping vampire pushed off the lid of his coffin and sat up. He shook his head. He was _so damn BORED_! It had only been thirty-seven years since he had last seen his friends, and already he was greatly missing their company. Perhaps a short visit was in order? He smiled. But his smile faded when he though of what he had left behind, knowing how it could have changed. He didn't know what he'd do if Alucard had been locked away again, and if poor little Victoria had been locked away with him . . . and for all he knew, the humans he missed so much could be dead now . . . he shuddered. But the desire to see his friends again reaffirmed his desire to go back to London, and so, after carefully stepping out of his coffin and closing the lid, he left his home in Romania and an instant later, found himself on Hellsing's doorstep.

The even breathing of the person next to her made Victoria realize just how early she had woken up tonight. Her senses told her that the sun had just begun to set. And if Alucard was still asleep, then . . .

_Victoriaaaaa . . . _a familiar voice called teasingly into her mind, _Victoriaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . I am coming for youuuuuuuuu . . . _

"_MALAKAI_?"

The sudden cry caused Alucard to wake instantly.

_Malakai? Where?_ His mind spoke sleepily.

Then suddenly, his senses awoke, and he felt his friend's presence at the Manor's front door . . . oh, this would not go over well with the guards . . . many of whom did not know or even remember the pale, silver haired vampire. Without another thought on the matter, he phased upstairs to where the Transylvanian waited.

"About bloody time," Malakai called when his dark-haired friend appeared, his accent thick and reminding Alucard of home.

"Don't tell me you have spent the last forty years in Romania, old friend."

"Oh, no. I just sleep there."

Alucard grinned. Before anyone else could arrive to investigate, Alucard embraced his friend and released him quickly. He really did not want anyone seeing him acting that way, even his dear Victoria, who knew that he did. Malakai studied Alucard like a parent inspecting their child for bruises. Seeming satisfied that Alucard was in as good a condition as he had been when he left, he nodded. The look in Alucard's eyes said that he had been doing the same. Though neither vampire would admit it, all they had was each other, with the exception of Victoria, but she did not have the history nor the experiences that they did. Although Malakai was certainly more open about his concern for his friend.

"Have you had even a speck of fun since I left? This place is exactly the same as it was then!" Malakai exclaimed, concern for his friend's remaining sanity radiating off him.

"Not much," Alucard said bitterly, "And you?"

"Actually, I had a run in with some vampire hunters only last night. They lasted much, much longer than you run-of-the-mill hunters. I was quite pleased by how well they did," Malakai replied.

Envy. Oh, the envy that circled the dark-haired vampire!

"Hm. Well, anyway, how is Little Miss Victoria?"

"I am just fine thank you."

He turned, unsurprised to see her standing there. She threw her arms around him, embracing him with such force, that his spine very nearly broke in half. He returned the hug with equal force and smiled when she quickly kissed his cheek and released him. She stood back, next to her former master, and her arms slid around his as she rested her head on his shoulder. Standing in his shadow eased the pain of what little sun there was left in the sky. Malakai smiled.

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice said from behind him.

"He is a friend, James. Now go," Victoria returned.

"Uh, yes, Ma'am," the soldier said.

After the rude little worm left, Malakai said, "They sure have gotten _rude_ around here, huh?"

Victoria shook her head, "No, just the newer group. They aren't really soldiers. Mercenaries, actually. Annoying bastards, the lot of them."

"And _you_ have gotten yourself a dirty mouth, Miss Seras," Malakai said.

"Oh, please. You should hear _them _talk."

"Yes, I think I should!" Malakai responded with a smile that Victoria had sorely missed.

Suddenly, a voice in Alucard's head demanded that they get the hell back inside.

"My master summons us to the office," he said irritably.

A twitch of irritation passed Victoria's face. Malakai wondered why on earth they were suddenly so aggravated. But before he could ask, the two vampires of Hellsing phased inside the office, and Malakai reluctantly followed.

But the silver-haired vampire's eyes were not met by the familiar sight of a blond woman with icy blue eyes, as he had expected. Instead, seated behind Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing's desk, was a young man. A man with blond hair, brown eyes, and an expression that did and yet did not remind him of Integra.

"What is going on here? Who is _he_?" the man demanded.

"He is . . . a family friend, Master," Alucard said curtly.

"A friend of _your_ family, I presume. What would possess you to allow this _filth_ to enter _my_ house?"

"Correction, _Master_, he was a friend of _your mother's_. She never had any qualms about allowing him here," Alucard said with a highly uncharacteristic snarl.

Taken aback by Alucard's disrespect, and by the news that this was not just some piece of trash, the man did not answer immediately. His friend's aggravation seeped into Malakai's system, and he suddenly found himself hating the man who had obviously replaced his dear Integral.

"Fine then. Who . . . who are you?" the man asked Malakai with a sigh.

"My name is Malakai Dolaein."

"Hmm . . . Malakai . . . I vaguely recall my mother mentioning you. Very well. My name is Jonathan Hellsing."

_Did I ask what your name was, whelp?_ Malakai broadcasted to all but the one whom it was actually directed at.

Victoria had apparently become very good at concealing her emotions. Because, like Alucard, there was no sign on her face that she had heard him but an amused sparkle in her eyes and gales of silent laughter.

"It is . . . good to meet you, at last. Where is your mother? Dead, I presume?"

"No. The queen ordered her to hand over Hellsing to me when I turned sixteen. My father . . . went missing shortly after I was born, else it would be in his hands."

_Went missing, meaning Alucard probably kidnapped him and left his filthy rotting corpse at the bottom of the river, _Malakai thought.

_Actually, it was Victoria who left his filthy rotting corpse at the bottom of the Thames_, Alucard replied, amusement enriching his voice.

"I see. Where is she?"

"In her room, where she belongs."

"Feh. You shouldn't speak of your mother that way."

"She is an old woman."

"Wrong you are, whelp. You are never truly old until your spirit fades away,. Or until you die. Your mother is not dead, and I know that her fighting soul would never submit to this . . . hell you have cast her into," Malakai growled.

Taken aback once more by this sign of disrespect he was so very unaccustomed to, Jonathan did not reply.

Wordlessly, Malakai exited the room and found his way to his beloved Integra's room, where he knew all too well Jonathan would not want him to be. Opening the door quietly, so as to show some respect to the woman who had been so carelessly tossed aside after outliving her usefulness. She was asleep. He gently closed the door. Approaching the bed, he studied the woman who had forced his respect almost forty years ago. She was not so very different from what he remembered. Despite the grey in her hair and the faint lines on her skin, she appeared almost the same as she had when he left.

Kneeling beside her bed, and reaching up to stroke some hair from her forehead, he murmured, "Good goddess, Integra, what have they done to you?"

At the sound of his voice, she woke up. Opening her eyes slowly, she instantly recognized him. He smiled at the sight of her icy blue eyes. She had aged very well indeed. She was still beautiful.

"Malakai. Nice of you to visit," she said with a touch of playful sarcasm.

"Well, I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd say hello. Your son is a bastard, by the way."

"I am well aware of it."

He grinned.

"I am glad that age has not dulled your mind, my dear knight."

"As am I. Much good it does me, now."

"Oh, but it has more uses than you know. It has kept your son from discovering that Alucard is still under your control."

"Hmph. Lot of good it does me. Alucard rarely minds my orders anymore. He is far too outraged by my request that he follow my son's."

"I can imagine."

She sat up, smiling. It pained him to see her wonderful mind and strength go to waste.

"The only solace I have left," Integra murmured, "Is in knowing my . . . beloved husband will not be causing me any further trouble in this life. Though I know I shall suffer his annoying idiosyncrasies in the next."

"Hmm. Yes. It seems, Dear Knight, that you are quite abandoned."

Pain flashed across the Hellsing knight's face. He immediately remedied the situation.

"I claim you in the name of Malakai Dolaein!" Malakai declared, his eternally childish demeanor returning, bringing laughter from Integra.

"So I am your property, now, then?"

"Nooo . . . I have merely un-abandoned you."

She laughed again. He was glad to see her younger self returning in her attitude and her behavior. The look of confidence had returned to her features, she now sat up straight in her seat on her bed. Suddenly, the door crashing open interrupted their moment.

"Step away from Lady Hellsing, monster."

"That will be quite enough," Integra challenged him, suddenly standing.

"Er, uh, Lady Hell-"

"That's _Sir_ Hellsing," Integral returned sharply, "Now, leave my room immediately, soldier! Before I-"

"Before you _what_ Mother?" A voice drawled from behind the soldier.

Jonathan pushed the man out of the way, glaring daggers at Malakai.

_Be strong, Integral Hellsing_, Malakai whispered soothingly into her mind.

"Before I have him removed _forcefully_. And then deranked."

"As I recall, Mother, that is no longer your decision."

"I am still alive, Jonathan, you miserable wretch. This is _my _organization. I will decide what happens to my men, and how they shall be disciplined."

"The queen has _clearly_ ordered that-"

"The queen had no right to interfere."

Silenced by this display of complete disregard for the queen's orders, and because of how unaccustomed he was to his mother's icy anger, Jonathan merely glared at her. It had no effect whatsoever.

"Leave," Integra demanded, "Before I have you removed."

As if on cue, Alucard and Victoria appeared at her side. The three vampires were a menacing presence in the room. The soldier backed out without waiting for approval from Jonathan, and then Jonathan himself left. The moment the door had shut, Victoria let out a sigh of relief, and then turned a big smile on _Sir Hellsing_.

"Oh, God, it is good to have you back!"

"I never left, Officer Seras," Integra replied.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's notes: Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. I have dived headfirst into a story I am not prepared to write, yet I am continuing on anyway, without the slightest clue as to what the hell I am doing. Kill me, please? By the way, I will soon be revising Silent Night . . . so look out for that.

For the first time in thirty-seven years, Seras Victoria was sleeping in her own room. Wanting some time alone with his friend, Alucard had subtly, graciously, and promptly kicked her out of his.

_I guess it is "grown-up vampire" time now_, she thought sarcastically, knowing full well that although she was no longer his servant, Alucard still thought of her as a "baby vampire".

Which was funny, because in every other (non-vampire-related) aspect of their lives, she was treated-mercilessly, and completely- as the woman she really was. The faintest of smiles lifted the corners of her lips. It didn't matter. In the last few years, she had learned of so many ways to take her revenge for instances like this-minor, yet offending due to the level of respect (or lack thereof) that he tossed at her as though she were still a human child-and for situations that were far more infuriating. Because over the years she had spent with him as his mate-for that was what she had become, as he had informed her-she had discovered a whole other side to him. There was the cold, arrogant, maniacal, and almost evil vampire lurking just beneath the surface. But then there was the passionate, yet still arrogant, intelligent, and unnervingly empathic _man_, lurking beneath that. Making it much harder to bring to the surface, unlike the vampire who could be awakened by only the sight or smell of blood. But she managed it with remarkable ease, had access to his deepest secrets. Including, but not limited to, his physical weaknesses. And it was amusing (actually, it was bloody fantastic) to know that the Great Alucard (or, Dracula, as she had learned over time) had weaknesses of his own, and that she and she alone could exploit them. His deep desire to be bitten by her, for her to drink his blood, was only one of her favorites (even after being freed from servitude, he still begged her to bite him sometimes).

"I think . . . I always knew," Victoria mused, "that he was like this. So cold, so arrogant, and so stubborn, yet passionate, empathetic-when the circumstances were right-and so willing to compromise . . . when it meant that he could have more fun, that is. Sometimes I have to wonder," she closed her eyes and titled her head back as she let her spoken words fade into her thoughts, "If that was the real reason that-"

_You loved me?_ Alucard finished, voice dripping with amusement.

_Hmm. Yes . . . as I have so often wondered why you love me_, Victoria replied.

_You aren't becoming one of those emotional, sappy creatures, are you?_

_Wouldn't dream of it_, she returned with a light, smiling voice that filled his mind with memories that completely contradicted her earlier statement.

_So convincing_, he said, his voice indicating that his body had probably raised an eyebrow and was displaying a look that screamed sarcasm.

Brief silence followed.

_I love you_.

_Good night, Police Girl._

She knew that that was as close as he'd ever come to giving her a proper response.

_Sweet dreams, Alucard_, she sighed.

_Sweet dreams_, he murmured, sending a shadow hand ghosting through her hair before letting the conscious connection between their minds drift shut.

Malakai observed this exchange with mild disinterest, leaning back in his chair. When the conversation was over, he arched an eyebrow at his friend.

"You'll never say it, will you?"

"Why? She already knows."

"So? Women are sentimental creatures by nature. They enjoy hearing the words, even if they already know."

"She's a vampire."

"She is a _woman_, and furthermore, she is still a very young woman at that. Barely sixty."

Alucard rolled his crimson eyes, irises flashing red as they reflected the dim light. He really had thought that her romantic nature would have become a little more realistic over the last four decades . Not that he didn't enjoy her innocent, idealistic, naive personality (it made teasing her that much more interesting), but it was those very characteristics that amused him that could get her killed. And he really did want her alive. Or . . . well, as close as a vampire could be, anyway. It wasn't much. Both males knew that, if left on her own, Seras would be killed. Being the trusting creature that she was, she would be destroyed by the first freelance vampire slayer she came across. Although, despite having crimson eyes, a body temperature of oh, 52 degrees, and fangs, she could pass for a human with relative ease.

_Bleh. The very thought, _the eternally childish section of Malakai's mind said with no small measure of disgust. Let's just say that that particular fragment of his being didn't really like humans. With the exception of Integral. Oh, and Isaac.

"Still obsessing over the Hellsing? You remind me of myself, of fifty-odd years ago."

"Ooooh, and which Hellsing would that have been, hmm?" Malakai replied, eyes sparkling as he began his ritual attempts to taunt Alucard into a fight.

Which wasn't hard, really. Alucard's love of violence was no secret, least of all from the man he had grown up with.

"Integra," Alucard said, ignoring the naughty images that were being flashed like some kind of sick slide show, courtesy of the man he was two seconds away from strangling (for the fun of it).

"Master servant smut, eh? Dirty."

No response.

"Awww, you're no fun at all," Malakai pouted, seeing that his taunts (feeble and empty as they were) were having no effect.

"No fun?"

The very next moment, Alucard's fist had connected with, and then passed through Malakai's chest, leaving a gaping, bloody hole in its wake. The maniacal grin that graced Malakai's face then was not unlike Alucard's own, leaving a disturbing resemblance between the two. Fighting hand-to-hand was not something Alucard did often, but the retainer had both his guns, and besides, it was more fun to attack someone with his own hands than with a weapon. Blood dripped from the gloved fingers, and the smell of blood overwhelmed him, filling him. But before he could blink, Malakai had disappeared, and then reappeared behind his back, twisting Alucard's arm cruelly, before inevitably ripping it off close to the shoulder. The arm fell to the floor, and Alucard spun around to retaliate, grabbing Malakai's hair (which was followed by a surprised shriek), before jerking his head so hard he broke Malakai's neck. Several sickening snapping noises followed as Malakai's body began repairing itself. Alucard's arm melted into a pool of blood, before sliding up his body and reforming into the lost limb. All the while, the two males were wrestling for control, and then Alucard kicked Malakai's shin with another sick snapping noise as the bone broke. Malakai collapsed to his knees, but continued to struggle, though it was useless. Alucard had the "high ground", he was stronger, and Malakai's weakened leg was hindering him greatly.

"Beg for mercy," Alucard hissed.

"Never!"

"_Do it_!"

"NO!"

Malakai's shoulder popped out of its socket as Alucard applied a great amount of force.

"Give up, Malakai," Alucard said quietly.

"I . . . I give. Mercy,"Malakai mumbled poutingly.

Alucard instantly released him, and Malakai slumped to the ground. Almost wearily, yet with a small smile playing at his mouth, Malakai closed his eyes as his body repaired itself.

"So. Did you have fun?" Alucard's amused voice asked.

"Haha. Ha. So funny. But," Malakai opened one eye and looked up at him, "Yeah. I did."

Alucard grinned, "I'm glad."

"Of course you are. You probably had more fun that I did."

"Naturally. I won."

"Only because I let you."

"Ha. Of course. Of course."

"What 'ha'? There is no 'ha'! I _let you win_!"

Malakai opened both eyes and cast a mock-glare in Alucard's direction. There was no further argument, because for all they knew, it could be true. Neither of them really knew who was stronger, but they did know that the only way to find out was through a battle to the death, and neither of them really found that option appealing. Well, actually, they did, but no one else was to know that each spent plenty of time fantasizing about a real, life-or-death fight. Both Malakai and Alucard found the idea "glorious". But for the time being, they were content to play. After all, a fight with Alucard when his powers were restrained and under someone else's control wouldn't be fun or fair.

"You weren't away for very long, Malakai," Alucard said suddenly, eyes closed, face shadowed by dark hair.

"I couldn't resist returning," Malakai murmured, "I'm inevitably drawn to you. Consequences of our pact, as it were."

The pact . . . how long had it been since they made it? Hundreds of years . . .

"Because of course it would have to do with that," Alucard replied, "I'm beginning to think that you'd stay away forever if you weren't forced to return after a time."

"No. I would still come back."

"Would you? I find that difficult to believe."

"I could not abandon you, Alucard."

This was true, considering the fact that Alucard had no other vampires to associate with, other than Victoria. Malakai needed Alucard, to keep his soul, his past, intact. And Alucard needed Malakai in order to keep his sanity intact. Or . . . well, most of his sanity/

"All right then. You've convinced me. For the time being," Alucard said, falling back into his chair and propping both legs up on the table.

Malakai remained on the floor, laying on his back with his hands behind his head and stretching out. They did not speak for a long time, hours maybe, merely soaking up the silence and watching in amusement as, in their moments of relaxation, their shadows drifted off their bodies in slow wisps and tangled, intertwining lazily.

"What has Victoria been doing, these past few years?" Malakai asked finally, speaking in their native tongue.

"The same. With the exception that Jonathan has been giving orders . . . it is rather irritating. You should see how she glares at him. The soldiers are honestly terrified of her. It's magnificent, really. She's beginning to behave like a proper vampire. But she's still such a child," Alucard answered, glad to be reminded of home, and better years . . . certainly long before Hellsing, before his enslavement.

"She is still young, as I recall telling you before. She will improve as she grows older. We all do. And just wait till she begins to go through phases, she'll change even more. Soon . . . though I'm loath to admit it, she'll be acting just like you," Malakai said, swirling a wisp of shadow around his fingertips.

"I can't imagine it."

"Me either," Malakai laughed, "I wonder if she'll be as interesting as your brides."

"I will personally send her to hell if that happens."

"Hmm. I almost hope you will."

They conversed softly in Romanian for about half an hour, catching each other up on details. But alas, even thirty-seven years apart did not provide a full day's worth of conversation. So Malakai retired to his old room, and Alucard phased unnoticed into Victoria's, sliding through the coffin lid and laying down next to her. The rest of the day, the vampires slept undisturbed. The rest of the day, Victoria dreamed of ways to get revenge on Alucard for excluding her, and Alucard peered into her dreams in his sleep, amused by what he saw there.

Two days passed as peacefully as was possible (when you are a member of an active vampire hunting organization and are called out to a crime scene sometimes as soon as you return from one), and Malakai enjoyed watching Victoria use her powers, and teasing her about how much she'd changed. Somehow, the conversations never led to Isaac, the one Malakai had missed most, the human cousin of Integral Hellsing. But he barely noticed. He mourned Walter's passing and celebrated Hellsing's victories, reveling in the glory as he described his own battles. In regards to that, Integra was not always too pleased with his stories. But she said nothing, and she listened, although a voice in her mind nagged at her that he was telling her about his victims, about humans he'd killed, and that she should _do_ something. She ignored the voice. His behavior was no longer her responsibility. And besides, it sounded as though he'd been causing hell for Iscariot. And she had a personal and professional vendetta against the lot of them.

It was the third day of Malakai's stay that Integral called Alucard and Victoria for a private chat. Even though he wasn't invited, Malakai tagged along as well. No one knew why she'd suddenly asked to speak with Hellsing's two top agents, but Jonathan had a feeing he was being conspired against. Not that Integral could really _do_ anything to him.


	4. Chapter 3

Author's notes: Sorry this took so long. It is a stupid thing to do, jumping right into a fan fiction without any regard for plot or characterization . . . honestly, I had no idea as to what I wanted to happen in this fic. But now, after careful consideration, I have figured it out for the most part. Silent Night is a good story, or so I've been told, but I've gone over it and I know it still needs work. Alucard, Seras, Integra . . . they deserve better than to be mixed into a crappy fan fiction. So yeah. NOTE TO ALL AUTHORS: USE SPELL CHECK, PROPER ENGLISH (NOT FANGIRL JAPANESE, OR NETSPEAK, I DOUBT THEY SPEAK IT IN ENGLAND), AND IF AT ALL POSSIBLE . . . THINK BEFORE YOU WRITE!!!!!!!

For the first time in thirty seven years, things seemed to be . . . peaceful at Hellsing. Integral was being much more forceful in her demeanor, especially in regards to her . . . beloved son. The shouts heard from Integral's office (she had promptly taken it over four days after Malakai's arrival) were truly heartwarming . . . to Alucard and Victoria at least. They were sure Walter would have felt the same, had he been alive. But . . . all humans die, and he was already getting on in years when Victoria had arrived.

It would be stupid to suggest that this sudden drastic change really had anything to do with Malakai's returnl. It was just the timing. Jonathan had spent the majority of his life driving Integral insane. And she had begun to tire of being the "helpless old woman". If England and the queen refused to see all that she had done in the past to honor her family . . . she'd _make_ them remember. _She _was the true Lord and Master of Hellsing . . . she had not named Jonathan as her heir. She had another child, another son, named Isaac (after her cousin, who had been dear to her). He was an intelligent, unselfish boy . . . he was the youngest, and Integral had seen to his education and suchlike herself. Jonathan on the other hand . . . everyone had expected him to be next in line for the leadership of Hellsing, so his father had been the one to educate him (while his father had been alive). So it went without saying that of course the brat would be _just like_ his father. Integral had tolerated the humiliation and degradation for long enough. She had done it for the sake of the queen, and for Hellsing itself . . . but no more.

"_MOTHERRRRR!!!!_"

With a sigh, Integra put down her pen. Jonathan stormed into the room.

"_WHAT IN THE HELL IS ALUCARD DOING?!_"

"He is following my orders," Integra replied with as much patience as she could muster.

"Do . . . do your _orders_ . . . include . . . _tormenting_ my men . . . until they _cry_?" Jonathan said through gritted teeth.

"Not in so many words. But yes. I thought he'd teach them some manners. And some lessons in proper vampire silencing. They are terrible shots," Integra smiled, "And furthermore, they die so easily. They tend to underestimate their opponents. Freaks, true undead, ghouls . . . it doesn't matter. They should all be treated with equal caution."

"So your idea of-of _educating_ them is having those _monsters_ chase them about the property _shooting at them with those monstrous guns_?!"

"Ah, no. I left the methods of teaching up to them . . . who's idea was it anyway?"

"From what I can gather, the she-demon fired first, then Alucard seemed to think it was a brilliant idea and followed suit."

"Brilliant. I'd thought she'd lost her fire after so many years with _you_ giving orders," Integral said, more to herself than to her son, who's fury seemed to be almost literally making his blood boil.

Jonathan obviously had nothing to say. The remark was not meant for him . . . in fact, his mother seemed so suddenly absorbed in her thoughts that nothing he said would reach her anyway. Suddenly, Adam, the new (or, well, not so new, he'd replaced Walter only days after his death . . . that was over ten years ago) retainer entered the room, gently closing the door behind him as he approached Integra's desk.

"It is dinner time, Sir. Was there something in particular you wanted, or . . ."

This boy was obviously nowhere near as competent as Walter, but at least he was considerate . . . but then, that was his job.

"Nothing comes to mind, but . . . bring me some tea. And an aspirin. A fly is buzzing in my ear, and it's giving me a headache," Integra said mildly, returning to her paperwork with the same diligence she had before.

"Yes, Sir."

Anger born of deep-rooted envy flared up in Jonathan. Even over something so small, seeing anyone treat his mother with such sincere respect made him angry. The only reason anyone gave him respect was because he was her son . . . and then it was only half-hearted.

"Get out of my office."

"Hmm?" Integra looked up.

"Get. Out. Now. Get out of my office, get out of my house," Jonathan hissed, slapping his palms against the rough surface of the desk, leaning close to Integra's face.

"Jealous, little boy?" a voice said from behind him.

Jonathan spun around leaning against the desk for support as the sudden movement caused him to lose his balance. Standing in the shadows was a tall male form that Jonathan clearly recognized as Malakai's. The cold glint in his eyes and the expression on his face both enraged and terrified Jonathan. But what terrified him more was that standing next to him, looking like Malakai's dark twin with the same expression on his face, was Alucard.

"What? You . . . I . . ."

"Come on, boy, do speak up. I'd expect my master's son to be a little . . . bolder," Alucard murmured mockingly.

"Shut your mouth, monster! I don't answer to you!"

"And I don't answer to you. I'm afraid that you are sadly mistaken if you believe I won't kill you for insulting my master with your pathetic commands. Get out of _your_ house? You are the same as that bastard your mother destroyed fifty-seven years ago. Your blood is Hellsing but it reeks of weakness," Alucard spat back.

Integra watched this in silence, noting that Malakai was choosing to allow Alucard to "vent" rather than interfere. It seemed to be a good idea. The tension in the air was stifling.

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Oh, she never told you? Your mother killed her uncle, years ago, because he tried to steal Hellsing away from her. You will suffer a similar fate, I think," Alucard replied, "But this time, I will be the one to send you to hell!"

He pulled the Casull from the depths of his red coat, and aimed for Jonathan's heart. He'd shoot him . . . Integra knew that. He'd shoot the bastard as if he were just another freak vampire or ghoul . . . he meant nothing to Alucard. He was just an annoyance. She wanted to stop him, she knew she should, but . . .

_Don't worry about it._

Her gaze turned immediately to Malakai's who's gaze only momentarily flicked to meet her own before returning to Alucard.

_Don't worry? Alucard is about to kill my son._

_Nah. He can't._

_What?_

_He. Can't. It's forbidden for him to kill a Hellsing himself . . . that's why you had to kill your uncle all those years ago, otherwise, he'd have done it himself. He can only kill a Hellsing if that Hellsing asks to die_, Malakai explained.

Though it was strange to see him standing before her as if ignoring her and yet to hear him speak in her mind was rather disturbing, she asked him_, How do you know that?_

_He told me. He is intimately familiar with his bonds to your family, with the rules and regulations and restrictions . . . and he's passed a great deal of that knowledge on to me. Though you have primary control over him, Jonathan has some and every time Alucard disobeys he receives pain. He's rather irritable about the whole thing, so just let him be for now_, Malakai replied.

"If you say so," Integra muttered, as she really was in no mood to argue.

"So, little Hellsing, what are you going to do?" Alucard said mockingly.

"You monster!" Jonathan screamed.

"Oh, wait, wait, I think I've heard that before. Yes, I can feel the Gods of Redundancy shining down upon us all. Very clever boy, you. Very clever," Malakai laughed.

"_In the name of God the impure-_"

"Souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Don't use that mantra against me, boy, I have heard it before," Alucard snapped.

"You-you _bastard_! I'll _kill_ you!"

Jonathan drew a small handgun from within his own jacket. It was really quite pathetic in comparison to Alucard's Casull . . . Alucard fired, changing targets. The gun in Jonathan's hand shattered, sending shards of metal into the Hellsing's body, blood spilling from the wounds the moment they opened.

"You'll kill me . . ." Alucard murmured, dark hair hiding his eyes even as a maniacal grin spread over his face.

"What . . . Alucard!" Integra's eyes widened in shock, as she gaped at the scene before her.

Suddenly, the palm of a strong hand met with the side of Alucard's head, the sound of flesh striking flesh reverberating off the walls of the office. Malakai had just done the unthinkable. He'd slapped Alucard.

"Stupid. You are _so stupid_! What in the _hell_ is _wrong with you_!" Malakai exclaimed suddenly.

Now, the problem with this was that for some reason or another, Malakai had reverted back to his first language. Which certainly was _not_ English. Due to this fact, neither Integral nor her wounded (and possibly dying) son could understand them. Alucard, however, was an entirely different story.

"He should not," Alucard replied, in the same language, "have insulted my master."

"Alucard, old friend, you may have forgotten, or maybe you just don't care, that you have just mortally wounded your _master's son_? I am willing to guess that it is the latter," Malakai said dryly.

_I can't believe it! He's just shot . . . and they're just . . . standing there having a conversation!_ Integra thought in utter amazement, intertwined with slight amusement and profound alarm as she realized the gravity of the situation.

Jonathan was dying. Suddenly, all conversation ceased. Integra knelt down by Jonathan, inspecting the cuts that poured blood onto the carpet. And as she inspected the wounds, tears began pooling in here eyes. Tears that would never fall.

"Why are you crying? He's not going to die, my dear knight," Malakai said, kneeling down next to her.

"What?"

"You heard me. He isn't going to die. Or . . . not unless you want him to," Malakai smiled, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

"Unless I want him to . . ."

_Pain. But it was natural, she knew that. This pain meant that right now, in this very moment, she was bringing a child, her first son, into the world. In a few moments . . . there he was, screaming, small, and she loved him. It was unusual to feel this close to another creature, for her, but this was not the same. This was hers, he was hers, he came from her. Integra smiled a small, barely noticeable smile as the doctor handed her son over to her._

_This time, the pain was worse. There were complications, this time, and suddenly, she feared. She feared for the life of her new son, for her baby, and for her own life. What would Jonathan do if she died? His father had been killed . . . Integra almost regretted even suggesting she had wanted him dead. Jonathan would be alone, an he was so young. But then . . . minutes later, thirty-two agonizing and terrifying minutes later, she was holding her second child in her arms. Isaac . . . he was so beautiful. After a few minutes, they allowed Jonathan into the room. The small boy's eyes lit up as he saw his baby brother. Integra smiled. There was nothing to worry about. Jonathan carefully climbed up onto the bed and sat beside his mother._

_"I hate you." Those words hurt more than anything else ever had in her entire life. Her son, her eldest child . . . was betraying her. He was breaking her heart. And he didn't care._

_He was taking everything from her. Hellsing, the respect she'd worked her whole life to earn, all of it. She hated that bastard. How that sweet boy had become such a foul-mouthed, pigheaded . . . no. It didn't matter. There was nothing she could do. Suddenly, every person she'd ever loved stood before her. They gave her their love, their strength, and suddenly, she felt all the power they had to offer her. There was a tug on her soul, and then Alucard was there, viciously defending her against her own son's insults, his disrespect. Seras was there too . . . and Integral knew she didn't need anyone else. Let him have Hellsing. With time . . . after he's truly experienced the true burden that came with being a Hellsing . . . he'd beg for death._

"Let him die," Integra whispered.

Jonathan's eyes widened as he heard the words that passed her lips.

"M-mother!"

"You . . . betrayed me, Jonathan. I could have forgiven you, if you had stopped there. But you betrayed Hellsing, betrayed my men, and that I will never forgive. You . . . killed Isaac," Integral whispered, hair falling over her eyes as she bowed her head and bent down to whisper in his ear.

"Isaac?!"

Malakai's sudden, angry exclamation shocked both Integra and Alucard. Though both knew Malakai had been incredibly fond of the human, they had not realized that his death would cause him so much anger. He was just a human, after all, one among many others.

"What," Jonathan said, voice choked with pain though he attempted to sound as one filled with contempt, "Does that _bother_ you, Vampire? Did I take your precious toy away from you?"

Malakai's fists clenched tightly, and his eyes flashed and darkened in bloodlust as rage began to envelope him.

"Shut up, bastard. That toy . . . was worth more than you, your ancestors, or any pathetic child you might have had. That toy . . . that man . . . was . . ."

"Calm yourself, Malakai," Alucard said in their native tongue with a soft warning tone as Malakai stood and approached Integra.

"Why,"Malakai said in deadly soft tones, "Didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me? I asked you to protect him."

"I didn't even know until it was too late. Isaac just . . . didn't come back. I wanted to call for you, I knew that . . . you'd want to know, but . . . I couldn't . . ." Integra said, suddenly understanding for the first time that not only was Isaac an object of affection for Malakai, but that to him, Isaac had been a precious possession.

One that he had obviously planned to keep, permanently. Integral knew a great deal about vampires, but how Malakai had planned on turning Isaac, who was male, and certainly _not_ a virgin, was beyond her. Not that it mattered now. The anger in his crimson eyes was slowly drowned in sadness and pain. That was something Integra did understand. To find someone, to care about them . . . and then to lose them without any choice in the matter, well . . . it hurt. A lot.

"I . . ." Malakai knelt beside the dying body of Jonathan Hellsing, and effortlessly lifted him by the front of his shirt, "should make you suffer. For taking what was mine. For taking a human life without regard for the consequences. But it's a bit late. You are already dying."

Jonathan spit at his face, spit blood at him, and Integra winced as it slid down Malakai's pale skin. But he didn't react, didn't stop to lick away the blood as Alucard would have, didn't smile, didn't become angry, didn't throw some sarcastic remark at the offending person, didn't even seem disgusted.

This wasn't Malakai, the compassionate, kind, childishly wise person that Integra had come to know. This was Malakai, the vampire, enraged at the loss of someone who was not only his property, but a person he cared deeply about. He pulled him close, and licked blood off the male Hellsing's neck.

For a moment, Integra thought he was going to bite him, but instead, a cold light came to Malakai's eyes as he turned slightly and said, "Forgive me, Integra."

And with those words, he tossed Jonathan out the window, shattering the glass. Jonathan flew back a few more feet before falling out of sight.

"You'll have to have that repaired," Malakai said, as though explaining his earlier apology.

Author's note: Don't ask about the "Alucard can't kill a Hellsing unless that Hellsing asks to die" thing. All will be explained . . . I think . . . hmmmmmmm. Probably not for a few chapters though.


	5. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and help! ON WITH ZE CHAPTER._

Jonathan's death had caused more problems than it fixed, more problems than Integra was prepared to deal with at the moment. She wished she could blame Malakai, but it wasn't as if he'd been really thinking when he'd done it. She supposed even vampires were occasionally prone to emotional rampages. But right now, she was tired, annoyed, and, though she'd never admit to it, grieving; she needed to place the blame somewhere. What made the whole situation worse was the disappearance of Jonathan's body. Sir Integra had ordered a few of her men to go and collect the body, but upon arrival to the place it had fallen, had found it missing.

A lesser person than Integra would have thrown their hands up in defeat at this point. The questions and demands of the other Knights (who were _not_ happy about the control of Hellsing being in her hands again) were unceasing, and aggravating. Honestly. It wasn't as though she was a novice to this game, and certainly she wasn't an idiot. For the first time in her life, Sir Integral wished that the other Knights would stop seeing her only as a woman in a man's place and give her a little credit. God knew she'd saved their lives more than once, and let's not forget the whole of England had also been rescued from the clutches of the filthy undead FREAKS by Hellsing, under her leadership.

But Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing could not be a lesser person. She would, as she always had, tackle the mess before her with the precision and efficiency, even if it meant gritting her teeth and listening to ignorant, soft-handed morons prate on and on about how she wasn't worthy to lead Hellsing and, oh, how far the great organization had fallen.

Alucard had already confirmed the involvement of vampires in the disappearance of the corpse. It saved her a lot of unnecessary investigation into suspected human organizations. The few institutions that dealt with the undead were being closely watched by Hellsing, and other than the usual attempts to create an unstoppable army through the power of vampires (so easily dealt with), there had been almost no activity. But if . . . no. There wasn't an if. Alucard was never wrong. Vampires _were_ involved. But why?

After Jonathan's death, she had ordered his body found only after she'd had her office cleaned and the window repaired, trying to convince herself that he was not important. She had succeeded, but at what cost?

Worse still, Malakai had gone missing afterwards, and no one but Alucard knew where he'd gone. And the dark-haired vampire wasn't telling. And what Alucard didn't want to tell . . . well, suffice it to say that there was a possibility that she'd never know. Victoria seemed to have an idea of where Malakai was, but the vampiress wouldn't give voice to her thoughts. She'd seemed deeply troubled when she'd heard that Malakai was gone. Occasionally, she felt the female vampire reach out with her mind, but the connection stretched out so far that Integral couldn't tell where it led to.

The look on she'd last seen on Malakai's face - a mix of fury, disbelief, and, strangely, heartache - haunted her, though not nearly as much as the one that followed. The look of a man with no heart, no emotion. He'd disappeared only moments after killing Jonathan. They'd held a brief memorial service for him and then Integral had begun pestering her pet vampire, trying to uncover Malakai's whereabouts. But either he'd sworn not to tell, or, more likely, Alucard had simply decided that it was none of her business.

_None of my business that a vampire could be loose in the world causing God only knows what kind of hell, _Integral thought absently, tossing a crumpled letter onto the cluttered desktop, _Only Alucard would think such a thing. I suppose it's beyond him to remember that I am the commander of an entire organization dedicated to _destroying_ these undead. And Malakai being his oldest friend . . . I don't think my vampire will give him up unless under a direct order . . . and it's not as if I'm going to give such an order._

_Why not, Master? It would ease your troubled mind a great deal, wouldn't it, knowing that he was tucked away inside his coffin, slipping away into a dark, deep vampire's sleep from which he might never wake?_ Alucard's voice purred.

_Is . . . that what he's doing?_

_No, Master. He's currently off in Romania killing some poor little humans that just happened to be camping in the wrong place at the wrong time_, Alucard replied calmly.

God, let him be joking.

_You aren't serious? He wouldn't-_

_But he would, Master. He's a vampire, every bit as dark inside and every bit as violent and every bit as bloodthirsty as I am. It's a glorious thing, to be standing under the moon, drenched in the hot blood of humans, laughing at the sky because you know that no one and nothing could stop you . . ._

Please, please, God, let him be joking.

_But he isn't . . . _Integral asked cautiously.

_He wishes he was, Master. But it's so lonely, hunting alone . . . he's been begging me to join him . . . I've endured more temptation in the last few hours than I've ever felt in all my years . . ._

Relief washed through Integral like a tidal wave . . .

_Well, tempting though it may be. You do know I'd never allow it._

_Of course, Master. I know the rules of this game. We've been playing for many years now._

_Does it seem that way to you?_

_Yes. The way a vampire experiences time is not so different from the way a human does._

Integra shuffled some papers around on her desk.

_I want to speak with him._

No response.

A blur of black and red materialized into a frowning Alucard before her desk.

"I can't force him to come here simply because you wish him to, Master. He's not your dog," Alucard told her.

"I know that. But I want to speak with him and quite frankly, you are the only one he'll pay any mind to," Integra replied.

"Very well."

And then he was gone.

Hours passed, and Integra's never-ending headache was not dulled by the passage of time. Whispers seem to echo through the room, whispers of maids and soldiers eternally criticizing her. Why was her son dead? Why weren't they going after the monster who'd murdered him? Why was she wasting time on the bastard who'd done it in the first place? She couldn't answer those questions. Which was why she needed to speak with Malakai.

As if on cue, a soft voice spoke from beside the heavily shadowed wall to her left.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes. Please sit down."

Malakai dropped into a chair in front of her desk. His dark blood-colored eyes were narrowed as he looked at her.

"Are you angry with me?"

No response.

"I take that as a yes."

"I wouldn't make assumptions like that, dear knight. Just because I choose not to answer foolish questions, doesn't mean that there is an affirmative answer waiting behind the silence," Malakai replied.

There was a hard edge to his voice that had not been there before.

"You are angry. I'm not deaf, vampire, I can hear the tone in your voice easier than you think. You are not so great an actor that you can hide your emotions completely. I suggest lessons from Alucard," Integra told him icily.

A mocking half-smile curved Malakai's mouth and he replied, "I've tried. He is not a good teacher. He is more emotional than you'd think; he's just not as human about expressing himself."

"That's perfect. Then humans like me will be the only ones who can't tell that you're irate even if you deny it."

"I've every right to be angry with you."

"Why?"

"You humans can't do anything on your own. You have to send others to do your work for you."

"What are you trying to say, vampire?"

"Exactly what I did say."

"I've done nothing to make you angry with me."

"Precisely. You just send Alucard to do it for you."

Integra's icy blue eyes narrowed.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean, vampire?"

"You could have just called my name, and I would have heard you. Instead you send Alucard to drag me from my home, _commanded_ me to come speak with you. I'm not one of your soldiers. I'm not your _dog_."

"I wasn't aware that you'd hear me if I called you, otherwise I would have. We've been trying to reach you for days with no response," she replied coolly.

Malakai blinked, his expression becoming perplexed.

"You didn't know that?"

"No," Integra said, taken aback by his sudden change in attitude.

"You mean, Alucard _never_ told you? Ever?"

"No, he didn't."

He frowned. It was no wonder, then that the irritable dark-haired male had come so rudely into his domain and dragged him out, irritated. Alucard probably didn't realize that she didn't know.

"That's awful!" Malakai said, "I was so ready to be angry with you. And all the time you didn't even . . . how could you _not_ know?"

"Yes, yes, I get the point, I didn't know, and it's odd."

"But, I can't believe he-"

"_Enough_."

"All right, all right!"

Malakai stuck his long tongue out at her.

She gestured for him to sit, and he did, perching on the edge of her desk, brushing papers and files aside.

"So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"How are you?"

"Shit."

"I'm serious. I want to know. You stormed off and disappeared for days. Alucard said you-you were upset."

"Did he now?"

Malakai's crimson irises searched her face intently. She was so lost in the intensity of it that she didn't realize till it was too late that he had buried himself inside her mind.

"It would seem to me that you're lying. He said I wanted to hunt, he said that I was not to be disturbed, but I don't think my being upset ever came into it."

"Not directly, but the implication was there."

"Mmm."

"Are you trying to say that my assumption was incorrect?"

Silence. That was all the answer she needed.

"I'm in hell because of what you've done, Malakai. Don't make your actions out to be anything other than what they were. Revenge. Emotional distress," Integra said.

"You really think I'm capable of such things?"

"I didn't."

"But you do now?"

"I do. You weren't thinking when you killed him, though I'm sure you'd have done it anyway. I saw the look on your face. As I said before, you only think you're hiding your emotions," Integral said.

Malakai sighed.

"I'm tired, dear knight. I am sick of loneliness. I'm sorry that you lost your son, but I'm not sorry I killed a murdering, traitorous bastard who took something precious from me. I am also sorry that his body has gone missing. I hope you find it soon," Malakai replied grimly, standing and turning to leave.

What the vampire did not know, could not know, was that his actions had caused events to be set in motion that would end life at Hellsing as they knew it.


	6. Chapter 5

_"Wake, Human."_

_Pain. Terrible, terrible pain._

_"_Wake,_ Human."_

_He opened his eyes. There before him stood a man and a woman, tall, light-haired, with brilliant crimson irises . . ._

_"Monsters! Freaks!" he cried in alarm before collapsing again from the pain of the effort._

_"Oh now. That's not necessary, is it? Be still, before you ruin our fine healing," the woman scolded him._

_He complied, because at the moment, even breathing hurt, and he needed his strength._

_"You can't escape, you know," the male said as-a-matter-of-factly._

_The human knew it to be true. He wasn't stupid, whatever the bastards at home had said about him._

_"What do you want? And where in God's name am I?"_

_"It hardly matters now, sweet one," the female said, her tone having changed to a soft, hypnotic sound that was so beautiful it made his soul ache._

_It was a voice meant to seduce; even as vampires had once lured helpless, spellbound humans to their deaths long ago, so was she trying to bend him to her will now._

_"Do you want to live? Our healing is only good enough to keep you alive for a short time. And eventually . . . you will die anyway. All humans do. Would you share their fate?" the male asked him._

_"We can give you such power," the female told him softly, placing a hand on his arm, tracing the soft blueish veins to his wrist with her fingertips. "You could easily extract your revenge from those who so wronged you."_

_Revenge. They'd known exactly what to say, somehow, to get his attention. That was what he truly wanted now._

_"And what would the price be for this power? This immortality?"_

_"You will be as we are."_

_A vampire. One of the damned undead._

_Right now, he didn't care what the price was. He didn't care about hell, he wanted to live. He wanted to kill the bastards who had tried to destroy him._

_"What do you get out of it?" Jonathan asked._

_"We get Vlad and his mate. We care not what happens when they are liberated from the mansion."_

_Aaah, but that vampire was one of the ones he wished to kill. But it was a small price . . . and he'd find some way to kill them later._

_"Yes. I want to live."_

_"Good, good, sweet one. Karen?"_

_A small girl stepped out of the shadows. She could have been no more than thirteen to look at her, but the crimson irises told him that for all he knew, she could be three times his age. The thirst in her eyes was deep and terrible._

_"Bite him."_

_The small girl called Karen was at his neck before he could blink. There was a flash of pain, and then . . . ecstasy. He didn't know hos long he would have to lay there having his blood drained from his body by an adolescent-looking vampiress, but at that point he didn't care._

_In that moment, all he could think about was his revenge._


	7. Chapter 6

Every now and again, the sadness would overcome him, but for the most part, Malakai was recovering well. He spent much time with Victoria and Alucard; Integral rarely saw him Which was more than likely a good thing, as he'd probably have gotten something thrown at him. Needless to say, the not-so-young director of the Hellsing Organization was under a lot of stress. And Malakai had a love and talent for getting on people's nerves.

_Perhaps I am to old for this, _Integral thought wryly.

_Never that, my master_, came Alucard's response.

_Oh, come now, Alucard. You know as well as I that humans grow old, and die. I am getting old, _Integral said grimly.

_You wouldn't have to if you'd only accept my offer . . . time would turn backwards for you, my master. You would be a magnificent vampire. We could all run away together, you and Victoria and I_, Alucard replied in a low, soft voice.

_Run away? Now, that doesn't sound like you at all. Who are you and what did you do with my vampire?_ Integral said in surprise.

_Maybe I am tired of this place. This tiny, filthy little island. I want to go home, Integra,_ Alucard answered.

It made sense. Every vampire eventually felt the strong pull of the soil of their homeland, the desperate need to return. Maybe it was Alucard's time to go back. It had been over a century since the beginning of his servitude to the Hellsing family, after all.

_Your offer is tempting, my servant. But you forget one detail . . . I am not a virgin. That puts a damper on your plans, does it not?_

_You know so little of our kind, my master . . ._

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was there some secret method of turning humans into vampires that no one had ever known about?

_Of course, Master. Vampires have many secrets that even you Hellsings know nothing about,_ Alucard replied, slightly amused.

Hmm. She could believe it . . . . . and although a part of her mind was tempted by his offer, her Hellsing blood was still strong, and she denied herself the chance at being immortal . . . . . at being damned.

_Yes, my master, we're damned. But . . . it's not what you humans make it out to be,_ Alucard said, having read her thoughts before she could censor them.

_As I recall, you were a human Christian once as well,_ Integra replied.

_Once. A long time ago . . . but I was never so religious as the stories make me seem, and I am certainly not now. Being "damned" works wonders on one's belief system, Integra Hellsing_, Alucard said.

_I suppose it would._

_You suppose correctly. Are there any missions for me tonight?_

The mere mention of a mission immediately irritated Integral. That was one of the things that had her so terribly stressed. There were no missions, because no one, not a single FREAK or fanatical organization or rampant vampire, was causing trouble lately. It was too peaceful.

_No missions tonight, Alucard. The night is yours_, Integra sighed.

_See you tomorrow then_, Alucard said, only the barest pout in his mental voice betraying his disappointment.

God knew that that poor monster had to be bored out of his mind.

"I'm sure somehow he'll live," Integral said sarcastically.

And that was the truth of it. Victoria was still amazed that somehow, Alucard was managing to keep these secret feedings from Integral. At first, when they went out into the city at night, Victoria had thought that Integra would have them followed. To her surprise, the leader of Hellsing hardly even seemed to notice, or care, that two vampires under her control were out and about without supervision. The first time Victoria had ever fed from a live human she'd been secretly terrified. She knew what would happen if they were caught. Alucard would be locked away and Victoria would most likely be destroyed, and Malakai hunted down for as long as Integral lived. But they had not been caught.

But tonight was not a good night to go out feeding. Alucard knew that there was virtually no activity in the city. It was the normal vampire-related incidents and Alucard's skill at fabricating evidence that made their victims look like victims of a human crime and kept them from being caught. And besides that . . . Malakai was there. The fact of the matter was, Victoria preferred sitting in their basement domain chatting with him to going out. Especially on a night like this, when it was so cold.

So there they sat, in Alucard's room, Victoria sprawled out across their shared bed, Alucard and Malakai seated at the table, feet propped up on the flat surface. Victoria and Malakai prattled on for a time, before a comfortable silence swept over them and they all sat mulling over their thoughts.

"Malakai?" Victoria was the first to break the silence that had lasted for an hour or so.

"Mmm?"

"Why were you so angry before?"

"When was I angry? I am never angry," Malakai scoffed.

"I mean when you found out that Jonathan had had Isaac killed. You looked as though you'd never endured such pain before, but surely you've lost loved ones before this? I know I have," Victoria replied.

Malakai was silent for a moment.

"If it seemed that way, it's because that's how it was. I'd never felt such pain before in my life. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because I had intended to come back for him, because I had marked him as my own. Perhaps it was the loss of a possession and not merely the loss of a . . . . . loved one," Malakai said, speaking more to himself than anyone else.

"I doubt it. People . . . don't get depressed because they've lost a toy. A . . . possession."

"Vampires do."

"People don't. Men don't."

"Yes, we do."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a man, and I say, we do."

"You can't be a man if you're a monster," Victoria replied, slightly confused.

"Now, who in the world told you that?"

"Well, ah . . . no one."

"Well then, what makes you think so?"

"Ah . . . nothing. Nevermind. I suppose I understand what you mean now. It's just that Alucard once said that only a man can kill a monster," Victoria mumbled, slightly embarrassed.

"Mmm. What he meant was not what you heard. Only a true vampire can kill another true vampire," Malakai said.

"Please explain," Victoria replied, curious.

"A vampire will rarely kill another vampire. When we do, it is for three reasons. Either we are insane, or else we kill to take over their domain and acquire their powers. Or, the most important and most common reason, to protect the species. As I said, sometimes a vampire will go insane, from the darkness inside of them raging out of control and sometimes, the powers they receive when vampires are freed consume them. During this time, they are mindless killers. They will destroy everyone, their servants, other vampires, any human they find, everyone. That's when someone, an original vampire, has to step in. They are the "man" going to face the "monster". They go to slay the beast, so to speak, to keep our presence hidden from humans, to keep more of our own from being killed. And only a true vampire can kill another true vampire. Do you understand?" Malakai finished.

"It seems we are not so different then," came a voice from the doorway. The three vampires turned to see Integral standing there, "Hellsing needs secrecy to protect our country effectively, and your kind needs it simply to survive."

"As I told you the night I met you," Malakai smiled.

"Indeed."

"There are so many of us, Integra, all over the world. You would not believe it, and even I do not know how many there are. We have stayed silent, and secret, for so long. And we cannot let even one renegade threaten our silent nights, our peace."

"I understand."

"Of course you do. You sacrifice much to protect your soldiers. Ou're a strong woman, even if you _are_ getting old."

"Old?"

"Do you think I was not listening to your conversation with Alucard?"

"The idea that you were listening in never occurred to me," Integral replied., "In any case, I must return to my work. I was going to see Adam and got sidetracked."

"Bye then!" Malakai waved.

Integral nodded and left, closing the door behind her. There was silence for several moments.

Finally, Victoria asked, "What is it, exactly, that makes a vampire go mad?"

"Many things," Alucard replied, "Grief, blood-lust, a great threat to one's life. And sometimes, their sanity just . . . . deteriorates as they grow older."

"Is that why so many of us are so . . . cold?"

"Yes. Part of it. We have to learn to let things go. To never regret . . . . otherwise, it would eat at us till we died. And we do not die in so short a time as humans do," Malakai said grimly.

It did make sense . . . she remembered how terrible it had been in the beginning, how it had changed over the years . . . and anyone who saw him knew how cold Alucard could be. For a vampire . . . . she supposed . . . . it had to be so hard . . . humans lived with the fear of dying, but it seemed that a vampire . . . would welcome an end to such bloody nights.

"I want to live," Malakai murmured in response to thoughts she had not bothered to censor, "I have no intention . . . . of ending my nights on this earth. I don't know about you."

Victoria picked at the blanket. She was restless. She wanted to go outside. The need to be free, to be able to go where she wished without fear of consequence, was growing stronger by the day. It was a terrible, burning, unyielding need, and it was driving her mad, slowly.

"Me neither," Victoria murmured, "I just want to go outside."

_Silent Night . . ._


	8. Chapter 7

As she listened to the recorded conversation from the previous night, Sir Integral wondered if the permanent vampire residents truly felt the same way . . . . and would they always feel that way? Could time not change their minds? Seras Victoria had never been . . . particularly immune to guilt over taking lives, and even as a free vampire, she had not completely accepted the idea of killing and simply forgetting. Would she be alive to see Victoria change? To see her become . . . no . . . Victoria would never be like her master. But that didn't mean much. What truly worried Integra was the thought of seeing a vampire, especially two she cared about (though she'd never actually _say_ it . . . in those words), kill themselves, or whatever else could happen if they simply lost the will to live. But, Integra supposed, it probably didn't matter anyway. She'd probably die before that happened.

"_You wouldn't have to if you'd only accept my offer . . . time would turn backwards for you, my master. You would be a magnificent vampire. We could all run away together, you and Victoria and I"._

The memory of those words returned to haunt her. It was . . . so tempting. As she grew older, she could feel her body weakening bit by bit, and secretly, it terrified her. As she weakened, she felt the fear of failing, of failing her men, of failing to be strong enough to lead them into battle. But as a vampire . . . she'd be able to lead them forever into battle, to destroy the monsters that threatened her home, her monarch, everything she loved. The price would be to become one of those monsters. Was that a price that she was willing to pay?

Malakai had come to visit her later on that evening, sat himself on the edge of her desk, and they'd discussed it between the two of them for several hours.

"You should consider it, dear knight. Alucard was right, you know, you'd make an excellent vampire."

"At the price of my soul, precious monster? I think not."

"Oh Integra. To enjoy what this world gives you, even damnation as you'd call it, is not a sin! And what if you're wrong, what if all of it is wrong? What if there is no heaven and hell, only life, then death, then rebirth, then new life? What if . . . never mind. It's . . . wasted on you. But you know . . . being . . . _damned_ isn't so terrible as you think," Malakai had murmured.

"Life . . . then death . . . then rebirth . . . you are undead. You cannot die. Therefore, you cannot be reborn. It is an interesting way to think of it. But . . . as a . . . pagan . . . I don't know if you'd be able to understand temptation, damnation, fear of death, in the same way I've grown up to. I can't just let go of all of that, and just . . . . give in . . . to something I've been taught my whole life is one of the biggest evils in this world."

"I understand temptation, damnation . . . . but not in the way you were taught. But it's not so bad as you think, as I said, it's just . . ." he leaned in close, breath hot against her cheek, "Closing your eyes, and letting it happen . . . . baring your neck to a monster is not so terrible or terrifying as you would like to believe it is, and it's not difficult. Who knows . . . you might . . . like it."

Flashbacks of her experiences with vampires in the Tower of London, and with the she-vampire masquerading as a sister she'd never had come suddenly to Integra's mind. It was easy when you were paralyzed, certainly. But to be bitten of her own free will, to become a vampire, was . . . she just could not see it happening.

"No, Malakai, I do not think it is that easy."

"For you, Sir Hellsing, who has suffered so much at our hands, I would imagine not. You have been bitten . . . twice in your life?"

"Yes."

"It was very painful, yes?"

"Yes."

"It is not always so . . . it's actually very pleasant if the one who bites you knows what they are doing . . . and of course if their intention is not to harm you."

"I know that."

"We are not all monsters, dear knight. And speaking of biting, I find myself thirsting. Good evening."

"Malakai, you can't just-"

But he had disappeared.

Integra sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger.

Any words she might have spoken were lost, and useless. She could not control him, even if she wanted to. And really, she did not want to. She had two vampires to keep under control already. Three would be chaotic. And impossible. The three of them together could destroy her. But she knew it would not happen.

_But won't it, Master? I intend to have my way . . . and my way will either see you dead . . . or undead_, Alucard thought quietly.

"You wouldn't _kill_ Sir Integra, would you?" Victoria asked softly.

"I will do what I must to have my way. Police Girl, have you not figured that out yet?"

"I know you will do whatever it takes to get your way, but . . . to kill her? I would have thought you had more respect for her than that."

"I'm offering her a choice, and instead of making her choice, she's determined to ignore the problem," Alucard replied simply.

"Well . . . your methods of convincing her aren't really the best, all she's seen from you is killing, you know?"

"And how did I convince you? Did I not offer you the very same choice? Did I not offer you death, or unlife?"

"Well yes, but it was a split second decision, I didn't truly think, I mean . . . asking someone if they're a virgin then shooting them in the chest . . . would I have been better off bleeding out on the ground, and dying?"

"I would like to think not," Alucard murmured, stepping closer.

"But see, that's it. It wasn't 'Oh gee, should I die today, is it a good day for me'. It was 'I don't want to die I don't want to die, oh my GOD I've just been shot, now what?' And then you giving me a decision with so little time, I _had_ to say yes," Victoria told him.

"Precisely."

_Would he really be willing to do something like that? To be placed in that position of absolute guilt? Her death would not really be her decision then, would it? _Victoria thought absently.

Images of Integra stabbing herself in the neck with a letter opener to avoid becoming undead passed briefly through Victoria's mind before she decided that Sir Integral would most definitely be able to choose death for herself if that day should come . . .

_Don't fret, Police Girl. I'll ensure that no real harm comes to my master . . . no more than is absolutely necessary. But I _will_, as I always have, get my way._ Alucard murmured.

_Because you're a spoiled brat, Alucard, and you know it!_ Malakai's disembodied voice shouted at them, laughing.

_Yes . . . though . . . you are no different._

_So? I don't _flaunt_ my spoiledness, _Malakai retorted.

_And you are no less a brat for it, old friend. Where are you?_

_Mmm, feeding._

Envy. Envy Envy Envy. The urge to ignore his orders and go out to join Malakai in the cool air of the night was sudden and strong. But Integra had told him to stay inside, and what Master wants, Master gets. Victoria sensed the weariness and pain in Alucard's soul, and she hugged his arm briefly in a gesture of comfort. He acknowledged the gesture with a brief, meaningful look before returning to the task before him. He'd been ordered to inspect reports and photographs from crime scenes of the last few months. As if there was anything in them _now_ that wasn't in them the day he'd first read them. And besides that, he'd been the one to _give_ most of these reports. True vampires were not involved in any of these crimes.

"We aren't going to find anything here, are we?" Victoria asked with a sigh as she sat down in the chair across from him.

"No."

"Then why bother," Victoria mumbled to herself irritably.

"For my master's peace of mind."

Victoria made a sound through her nose akin to a laugh. Integral's peace of mind. That woman was restless, paranoid, and bossy. The vampiress sighed. But . . . she was also hard-working, almost always dead-on with her hunches, and she knew what it took to be a good leader. She was directly responsible for the lives of each one of her soldiers, and indirectly responsible for the lives of everyone in England. If one of her men made a mistake, Integral took the blame. If someone died, Integral mourned in silence even as she filed the report, saw to the funeral, and spoke to the family of the deceased.

So it was no wonder, then, that Integral was the way she was.

"Someone needs to give that woman a break," Victoria grumbled.

Alucard chuckled. It was true.

"How exactly does one 'give that woman a break'?"

They looked up at Malakai as he dropped gracefully into a chair.

"Beats the hell out of me," Victoria said.

"She'd likely as not shoot you for even making the suggestion. She's got too much work to do."

"Aren't there people around here who are supposed to take care of all that paperwork and such?" Victoria asked, "Walter used to do most of it. All the unimportant stuff, anyway, like ordering in supplies when we were low on something or signing paperwork so that this could be repaired or that could be built."

"Adam is not as efficient as Walter," Alucard said icily.

He did not approve of the new retainer at all.

"He hasn't been on the job very long."

"Not an excuse."

Hellsing had gone through four retainers since Walter's death, finding each one flawed in some way that could cripple the organization. Sometimes, the flaws were not uncovered until after the replacement was dead. Finally, they had settled on Adam, because he had once been a soldier for Hellsing himself. He had been injured one night when his unit had been attacked by an unbelievable number of ghouls. His injury was such that he lost all vision in his right eye and several fingers of the hand on that same side. Integral could not afford to lose such an experienced soldier, but neither could she allow him to return to active duty.

Victoria sighed. Adam did not like her very much and during the brief time she'd been in command of his unit, he'd been one of the worst troublemakers of the lot. Almost as bad as the damned mercenaries. How she despised them.

They were filthy, unorganized, disloyal, and downright insubordinate. She hated how they smelled, how they cursed, how they left a mess everywhere, how they fought, and how they continued to stare at her chest and ass even after she'd broken the nose of one soldier who'd looked too long and the hand of one who'd even dared to try to grope her.

"They never learn," Victoria grumbled.

A growl rose in Alucard's throat at the memory. When he'd found out, he had been extremely displeased at the audacity of the human involved, and even more displeased that Integral had not allowed Alucard to kill him. Or hang him by his toes and beat him with a stick at the very least.

Ah well.

Victoria picked at the plastic tab on the bag holding her nightly rations. She was thirsty, but lately, the taste of the cold liquid made her want to throw up, and at the same time, made her even thirstier than before. Alucard had been force-feeding her not only her blood pack, but also his. And sometimes, requesting that a few extra bags be brought down. And he ate none of it himself.

Her stomach growled. Malakai and Alucard both looked at her, as the latter pushed the bucket of ice and blood toward her.

She grimaced and plucked a bag out of the bag, ripping off the tab at the top, and taking a long slurp.

Her stomach rebelled.

There was a sudden terrible pain in her abdomen, and she phased into the bathroom just in time to puke on the edge of the toilet. Her stomach made further attempts to empty itself of all its contents, even when there was nothing left and she was almost crying. Eventually, her stomach calmed down. She took a few deep, slow breaths and flushed the toilet, leaning against the wall beside her. Her eyes closed and after a moment, the door opened behind her.

"Are you all right?"

She felt cool hands on her neck, then sliding under her arms and lifting her to her feet. The disgusting taste of stomach acid and blood was strong in her mouth. She leaned against whoever had helped her up. It was Alucard, from the smell.

"What's wrong with me?" Victoria asked wearily.

"I don't know."

She felt the familiar sensation of a cool breeze blowing around her and knew he'd phased them into their room. She opened her eyes and let Alucard help her sit.

_I'm so tired. I feel nauseous, and I just want to sleep,_ Victoria thought as she laid her head down on the table, resting them on her arms.

Eventually she fell asleep. It was not restful, as nightmares plagued her, consequence of her sleeping during the night. She slept through the next day as well, and woke the next night with the closed lid of her coffin-bed above her, Alucard laying quietly beside her. Not that he was sleeping.

"Feel better?"

"Yes, thanks," she sighed.

She really didn't want to get up. She was thirsty, she was tired, and she was almost comfortable. But even as she considered the idea of sleeping, she felt the familiar sensation of Integral's wake-up call.

"Joy."

He glanced up and down the street, searching for any signs of life though he already knew there were none. The only thing living on this street tonight was his intended victim.

Or, victims, rather.

To this day he didn't understand why teenagers thought it was okay to be out and about in the middle of the night without their parents' permission.

He sighed. The world had changed so much since the days of his humanity, and he wasn't sure that it was for the better. Oh, well, it made his life a hell of a lot easier. Though significantly more boring.

He phased across the street so that he could make it appear as though he was coming from around the corner. Best not to scare them too much. Even on an empty street like this, it wasn't secluded enough for what he intended.

As he approached, he could smell their blood, strong and sweetened by their youth and . . . things that their parents didn't know about.

He had to remind himself that this was for Victoria.

They stood not ten feet from him, talking and laughing so loudly it made him flinch.

"Stop," he said aloud, his will putting force behind the words.

The children stopped in their tracks, and became totally silent.

"It's time to go, little ones," he murmured softly.

"Yes, master," they replied in unison, their voices equally soft.

He phased them to a more secluded place, somewhere they would not be found until he was ready for them to be found.

"Come," he commaded, taking a small folding knife from his pocket.

A large bottle hung on a strap over his shoulder, the kind one would see carried by a person who hikes regularly for great periods of time. He unscrewed the lid as one of the teenage children stepped forward. Sensing what he wished, she held out her arm. He drew the blade across her wrist, making a deep wound. Blood almost immediately poured from the cut and he held her wrist to the lip of the bottle, letting it spill into the container. When he sensed that she was close to the limit, he licked the wound closed and she stepped back, faint from bloodloss.

"Come," he commanded again.

The blood was still very warm when Malakai presented it to Victoria. She was not in the least bit concerned with where he got it. Mostly because she was afraid to know.

She drank deeply, leaving a small amount in the bottle for Alucard to finish off. Malakai left after it was gone and disposed of the bottle.

"Are they still alive?" Alucard asked Malakai.

Victoria was still too young to appreciate the subtle differences in smell and taste that could tell a vampire so much about a victim. Their age, what they ate, what they drank, how active they were, if they were alcoholics, drug addicts, or, of course, whether or not they were a virgin.

"Yes."

Malakai had commanded the children to go home when he'd heald their wounds and erased their memories. He'd also seen to it that they would never feel the urge to go without permission again.

It was not safe to be outside at night.

_Vampire night . . ._


	9. Chapter 8

How anyone could or would abandon their newborn fledgling, was incomprehensible to most vampires. But it did happen every so often. When it did, an older vampire would eventually happen across the newly made vampire and take pity on them. Of course, the phrase "taking pity" was open for interpretation. For some, it meant sheltering and teaching the fledgling. To others, who felt that for a fledgling to be separated from its master was a cruel, abominable abnormality, taking pity on the lone fledgling meant putting them out of their misery.

Abigail was neither fortunate nor unfortunate enough to have found herself in either situation. Sometimes, though, she wished that she _had_ been destroyed in those early years, wished that she hadn't survived against all the odds, found her master two hundred years later, and killed him to free herself. Wished she'd been killed before things like _this_ could happen.

_Run_.

_Just keep running._

She phased. The bastards followed. She ran. They gained on her. She hid. They found her.

It was going to come to a fight.

There was no other choice.

"_DAMN_ it."

She stopped running, turned sharply on her heel till she faced them. They caught up quickly. Though she could not see them, she could feel them surrounding her. She calmed herself to the best of her ability, closed her eyes against the brightness of the waxing moon. She could sense them better when her eyes were closed.

In her mind's eye she saw them, hideous, mutilated monsters. Creatures so filled with self-loathing that they hid themselves from the sight of the world.

"Come with me."

Her eyes snapped open. She felt the person standing back-to-back with her, guarding her.

"Who are you?"

"Does that matter right now? Come with me. I can protect you."

Abigail carefully considered her options. These things, she could not kill. She couldn't even _see_ them. This person, though, she could see. And she didn't really think that he'd risk his neck by showing up in the middle of this if he was going to kill her later.

"All right."

She felt the familiar sensation of a cool breeze blowing past her, of her body becoming insubstantial, and then the street before her disappeared as he took her with him to another place. She didn't know where she was being phased to, only that there was nothing she could do to stop it now. They materialized in a chilly, dark stone hallway a fraction of a moment later.

"They won't follow us here."

She turned to face the speaker, her savior. He had short, spiked, white-silver hair, and pale skin. He was tall, and obviously well built. He wore a white button-up shirt and dark tattooed jeans. His right ear was pierced seven times, and his voice was rich with an unfamiliar accent. And vivid crimson eyes that sparkled even in the dim light of the hallway. He put a finger under her chin and gently closed her mouth.

"It's rude to stare," he said softly.

Abigail blinked.

"I wasn't."

"Actually, you were," said another voice. "It's all right, though. Everyone stares at him."

Abigail turned to face Victoria.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. Anyway, my name's Victoria. Most call me 'Officer Seras', but please, call me Victoria," she smiled, extending her hand to Abigail.

Abigail took the hand and shook it briefly, noting Victoria's red irises and genuine smile.

"And you are?" Abigail asked the male who had saved her from uncertain death.

"Malakai Dolaein. You may call me Malakai," he replied, with a slight nod.

"My name's Abigail."

Abigail despised the self-assured way he addressed her, giving her _permission_ to call him by his name. As if he were -

"Don't get too upset with him. He's a spoiled brat. He thinks that just because he's older than almost everyone else here, he knows everything," Victoria said, sensing the other girl's change in mood.

"I am _not_ spoiled!" Malakai pouted.

"Are so."

"Didn't we discuss this already, old friend?" came yet another voice from down the hall.

Malakai stuck out his tongue at the dark-haired male who approached them.

"That's my ma – err. That's Alucard. He won't introduce himself to you . . . he's even worse than Malakai, you see," Victoria explained to Abigail in a stage whisper.

"Is it wise to stand out here where anyone and their dog can overhear? There will be trouble if my master finds you're bringing home strays," Alucard said coolly, raising an eyebrow at the newcomer.

Intruder, more like, in his opinion.

"Aah! Right, right, we should move," Victoria exclaimed.

She took Abigail by the hand and led her to a room with a heavy metal door. Malakai and Alucard followed, dropping into chairs. Malakai pulled an extra chair out from the table with his foot and indicated that she should sit. She did, and Victoria shut the door.

"Much better," Victoria sighed as she shut the door.

She took a seat on the top of what looked to be a very large metal coffin.

"Now then. Why don't you tell us what's going on," Alucard said.

It wasn't a request.

Malakai shrugged, "I found her getting ready to fight for her life. I decided to do something about it."

"So you brought her _here_." Alucard said flatly.

"I didn't have many options at that point. They were nearly invisible, and there were many of them. There was a feeling about them that let me somehow know they could not be killed. And that they would follow their target anywhere in the world until they had completed their mission. They were not going to just let me take her away. And before you bite my head off . . . these monsters were the same that poisoned your blood supply. And took the body of your master's son."

_Stars are gone . . ._


	10. Chapter 9

Author's note: Abigail will probably be renamed at least 3 more times before I'm truly satisfied with her. But I decided not to hold off with the updates over something that minor. Also, if you can figure out the funny thing I did in the last chapter, kudos. Only people who have read _Silent Night_ will be able to figure it out. Thanks for all the love and support! Keep it up!

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself, if that's what you want," Malakai said, folding his arms across his chest.

Alucard turned to Abigail, the look on his face making her nervous.

"Describe these . . . monsters," he commanded her.

"Describe them . . . ?" Abigail said faintly.

For some reason, he was starting to frighten her. Somehow, the look in his eyes was more terrifying than being cornered by the very creatures he wanted her to tell him about.

Alucard's expression and his tone softened, becoming soothing and hypnotic, "Tell me about the monsters that are hunting you."

The fear evaporated in an instant. Suddenly, Abigail felt that she would do anything he asked of her . . .

"Some of them are . . . were . . . human, once. Most were vampires. I don't fully understand how they were made . . . some, you can tell, were willing experiments, some were not. They were horribly mutilated somehow, because of that, they choose to move unseen by the world. You cannot see them at all except for brief flickers now and again, like shadows at the edge of your vision. If you close your eyes, you can see them better. They possess such hatred, for themselves and for the world. They hate the world because they know that they can no longer be part of it. They have power that I don't understand. They can move through shadow as vampires do . . . but on foot they travel more quickly than any vampire ever could. They can sense where their target is. You can't hide from them. I've tried-"

"How long have they been after you?" Malakai asked abruptly.

"I am not sure when I first began to notice that they were following me. But they only began actively hunting me about a year or two ago."

"Hmm. Anyway, continue," Malakai said.

He looked suddenly distracted.

"All right . . . aaah . . . they usually do not kill their target. Normally, their targets disappear very suddenly, without warning. They go out and never come home, or sometimes, these things have the nerve to take them right off the street. I don't know where they go. When they do kill . . . I don't know how they do it. Like I said, they have power I don't understand. I wish I could tell you more," Abigail said, truly regretting that she knew nothing else.

Alucard nodded slowly.

Victoria was pale. Paler than usual, anyway. She seemed shocked, and deeply disturbed by something. Alucard studied her, veiled concern in his eyes.

"Do you know why they're after you?" Malakai asked, trying to distract Abigail from what was apparently a private moment.

"No. I wish I did."

"And you said they've been hunting you for . . . two years now, maybe more?"

"Yes."

"How have you avoided them for this long, then?" Malakai inquired, truly curious.

Abigail was suddenly weary.

"I don't stop. I rarely sleep. I feed quickly, oftentimes going without for months. I run. I've been all over the world in the last two years. I tried hiding from them. It doesn't work, like I told you. I really thought I was going to die, tonight," she said quietly.

She remembered then that she had never even thanked him properly for saving her hide.

"Don't," he said, holding up a hand, "I don't want your thanks. The information you've given me is thanks enough. Victoria was almost killed the other day because of what they did to the supply of blood that's sent here."

"She was almost . . . killed? How?"

"They did something to the blood, like I said. It's like food poisoning. Luckily, she didn't drink much of it. It was a slow process. For several weeks now, she's been drinking tainted blood, and at first we thought her body was just rejecting it because ti was cold, or something. So we made her drink more. We didn't consume any of it ourselves, we weren't affected. It wreaked havoc on her insides. Eventually, she threw it all up. Her body couldn't even process it, use it, so it was still all in her system. Something that they did to it made her crave it, so that she'd continue to drink it," Malakai told her.

Abigail looked thoughtful. Malakai took that time to study her a little more closely. Looking at her face, she wasn't exactly what you'd call beautiful. But there was strength, a determination to survive, and intelligence about her. He found that attractive. Aside from that, it wasn't that she was _bad_ looking. She was . . . plain. She had mouse-colored hair and a faint, pale smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The only thing about her to distinguish her from a human was her eyes. She had extraordinary eyes. Red irises, of course, ringed in black with flecks of dark grey. She was an average height of 165 centimeters (5'5"). She did have a pretty nice shape.

"It's not polite to stare," Abigail said dryly.

"I know," Malakai said grimly, "but I just couldn't help it. You're so pretty."

Alucard rolled his eyes at Victoria, who smiled. Typical Malakai. He couldn't help himself, it seemed.

"Gee," Abigail replied, "thanks."

"Oh, you're welcome," Malakai winked.

"Glad to see they're getting along," Victoria muttered.

_Gone from my sight . . ._


	11. Chapter 10

Author's note: Thanks to my loyal readers. Thanks especially to those of you who review every chapter and send your encouragement. I'm glad you like the story so far, and I hope you continue to like it!

His eyes flicked around behind his eyelids as he slept. He was dreaming.

_--Oh, oh, agony, agony make it stop cold steel everywhere it's dark where am I where am I I'm scared, someone help me, please, PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!--_

_Circles of blood_

_Circles of blood_

_Hung from the ceiling in chains_

_Taste of blood in my mouth_

_Blood on the floor_

_It's on the walls._

_Circles of blood_

_Spiraling down._

_Death is everywhere._

_The shadows move here. I'm afraid. I want to go home._

_--Cold hatred. I hate you, I hate the world, I hate myself. The smell of blood is driving me mad.--_

_Circles of blood_

_Strapped to a cold metal table_

_Human blood raining down from the ceiling, landing next to my head on the table top. I stick out my tongue as far as I can but I can't reach it. It makes a sound when it lands. "Ping, ping, ping"._

_Circles of blood._

_Blood burning into my body._

_Her blood._

_I know what's happening to me. I asked for this._

_I hate myself._

_Circles of blood._

_I need blood._

_It burns into my body, changing me._

_The smell of blood on the tools they use._

_The tools lying on a tray._

_Circles of blood._

_Malakai saw a pair of eyes coming at him from the darkness as he stared through the eyes of the captive. Somehow the eyes knew he was watching. They came closer. Frightening eyes, though he couldn't exactly say why. A pale hand reaches out from the darkness and touches the abdomen of the captive. It burned._

Malakai awoke from his dream screaming.

Frantic, panicking, he ripped open his shirt, saw the red, raw, exposed flesh.

A burn in the shape of a hand.

In an instant, Alucard was there. The dark-haired vampire's eyes grew wide.

Something pushed at Malakai's mind with incredible force. He pushed back, denying it entrance. It gave him pain, punishing him. It wanted in. It was a warning. It pushed again, demanding entrance into his mind. He fought back again. Unbelievable agony.

Malakai screamed again.

Alucard saw the source of the problem. Malakai was still connected to whoever's mind he had been in in his dream, and the thing sensed him.

"Break the connection," Alucard commanded.

Malakai tried. He couldn't even sense it anymore. He searched for the thin "thread" that brought the two minds together. He couldn't find it. He clenched his teeth, fighting wave after wave of pure pain as he desperately tried to sense the connection between his own mind and the mind of who he had "been" in the dream.

It was useless.

Alucard was furious.

He pushed into Malakai's mind, searching for what his friend could not see. He looked in the direction the pain was coming from, and sensed it, found it in the spiderweb-fine thread that bound Malakai's mind to the thing's. He destroyed it.

Alucard withdrew from Malakai's mind, drawing in power from every living and un-living thing in the mansion. Red light radiated outward across the floor in the pattern of the Hellsing seal. He wove an intricate web of protection around the house, and the grounds. He turned his attention to the living residents of Hellsing.

They were his property too.

He drew his power around Malakai, Victoria, Integral, Abigail, the soldiers, the maids, everyone, carefully constructing his cobweb-like barrier of protection around each individual person.

No one would intrude upon his territory, threaten his possessions, his friends, his mate, again.

He drew the excess power back into himself, and the red light disappeared. But the fury, the incredible mix of fear and rage and hatred did not dissipate. It radiated off of him more strongly than the light, surrounded him in a terrible aura, sent fear and visions of monsters into the minds and the dreams of everyone in London.

Someone had tried to take control of Malakai. Had brought him pain, to force him to submit. Malakai, who was Alucard's oldest friend. The person to whom he had sworn his soul, centuries ago, and who had sworn his own in return.

Their pact.

The oath which bound them together even after such time that other vampires had long forgotten their past, their friends, their family.

The rage blinded him, confused him, consumed him.

A hand touched his shoulder.

A familiar scent filled his lungs.

Victoria.

"Alucard," she murmured.

She sounded tired.

She was probably scared out of her mind, with what she sensed from him.

All the emotion that had accumulated in him over the last few moments was suddenly, abruptly gone.

The dark-haired vampire sank into a chair. How many centuries had it been since he was this exhausted?

Victoria glanced over at her friend. The burn on Malakai's chest was healing very, very slowly, but visibly.

"What is going on?" she asked them softly.

Malakai sighed and took a deep breath. It was difficult to breathe.

"I was dreaming."

"And? I refuse to believe that this was all just because you had a dream," Victoria said dryly.

There was a soft knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Victoria called.

"Abigail."

"Come in, then."

The female vampire obeyed, closing the door behind her and sitting down at the table across from Alucard. Victoria was stroking his hair, and his eyes were closed. The look on his face told her that he's just endured a terrible ordeal. Though, she admitted, Malakai looked like he'd been though worse. What with the raw, bleeding wound on his chest and all that.

"So you were saying, Malakai?" Victoria said absently.

"I was dreaming. Mostly, when I dream, I see things that are going to happen before they happen. But sometimes, like tonight, I visit the minds of those who are involved with the problems of the present."

"And what did you see, tonight?"

Malakai closed his eyes as he spoke, trying to recall each minute detail, exactly as it had happened.

"I was in the mind of a human, first. He was hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, naked from the waist up. He was going mad even as I listened. He said, '_Oh, oh, agony, agony make it stop cold steel everywhere it's dark where am I where am I I'm scared, someone help me, please, PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME!_' He was terrified and in pain. His mind was forming the same images over and over. 'Circles of blood', moving shadows, blood everywhere, on the walls, the floor, everywhere. Next I was in the mind of a vampire. A willing victim, or so I was led to believe. This one was male also. Mostly, what I felt from him was absolute hatred. He was in constant pain, more than the human had been. There was a mark burned on his abdomen. He kept saying it was blood, 'her blood', burning into his body, changing him. The bloodlust was driving him insane," Malakai frowned, "He also had those same images in his mind. Repeating them over and over. 'Circles of blood'. I don't understand it, really. Then . . ."

He stopped, grimacing in remembered pain.

"Then what?" Abigail asked.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

I saw eyes coming at me in the dark. Shining eyes. In a world of darkness, that's all I could see. Coming closer, and closer. They knew I was there, in the vampire's mind. A hand reached out and touched the stomach of the vampire. It burned me," Malakai's voice broke. He was ashamed at himself for his weakness, his fear, but he couldn't help it. "I woke up screaming."

Malakai stared down at the wound and shuddered. He was silent for a long time.

"And what happened after that?" Victoria asked quietly.

Alucard seemed to be asleep in his seat, but Victoria continues to comb her fingers through his hair, cradling his head in the crook of her arm.

"Alucard came here. I tried to break the connection to the vampire from my dream but I could not find it. The thing . . . whatever it was that touched me, was trying to get into my mind. It used pain when I would not allow it. I tried to find the bond between our mind but I couldn't sense it through the pain. Alucard found it and severed the connection. Then he wove a barrier around the mansion. And us, too," Malakai said.

"Hmph. You make me sound like a hero, old friend. I was merely protecting my property," Alucard mumbled.

Okay, so he wasn't asleep.

"I know," Malakai smiled bitterly, "I know that."

Alucard opened one eye.

He knew that Malakai was furious with himself. That was something he'd have to work out on his own.

"I think we should all get some rest," Victoria said.

She turned to Malakai.

"Will you be all right?"

"Yes. There is no danger, now. Thanks to Alucard."

She nodded. Victoria wrapped her arms around one of Alucard's and they left. He was almost leaning on her.

Abigail sat in the chair, picking at her shirt awkwardly.

"I'll go too, then, I guess," she mumbled, standing.

"You don't have to," Malakai said suddenly, taking hold of her sleeve.

"I thought you told Victoria you'd be fine," she replied slowly, suspiciously.

"I know what I said."

"So you lied."

"Not really. I just don't feel like being alone right now, and since Integral is probably busy, and since she'll be angry anyway because of what Alucard did when she figures it out, I can't go bother her. She'll ask too many questions that I don't want to think about," Malakai said.

Abigail considered that for a moment.

"All right. I'll stay. For a while."

Malakai seemed relieved. He released her sleeve and sat down on the edge of his bed. Abigail sat down in a chair at the table.

Where Malakai wasn't entirely sure what he planned on doing for the rest of the day, he was absolutely certain that he didn't want to be alone at that time. Nothing else really mattered.

_Pain consumes . . ._


	12. Chapter 11

Author's Note: Sorry Sorry! I know it's been awhile, a couple months actually, but I've been busy with real life and it's cutting into my time to work on this other "life". Thank you for being so supportive. Here's Chapter 11! Those of you who remember Silent Night should know almost instantly what's going on. (I can tell that this story is going to be longer than Silent Night . . . . . . . . . unless my brain explodes and I never finish . )

It was difficult to describe exactly what happened to him. One minute he was talking, tilted back in his chair, hands behind his head; the next, his hands had suddenly dropped to his sides, the front legs of his chair had crashed abruptly to the stone floor. The expression in his eyes was distant, and she knew, somehow, that he was no longer with them, that he was seeing things she couldn't understand, things that were very, very far away . . . . . .

_Hellsing manor. It's nothing more than a ruin, now. Walls destroyed, the remnants awash in blood, the atmosphere filled with chaos and decaying bodies of soldiers lying around as far as the eye could see . . . _

_'How did this happen?'_

_'Jonathan Hellsing! Jonathan Hellsing! Jonathan Hellsing!' voices screeched with hate._

_'Show me.'_

_He was pulled backwards, he could feel time working in reverse, eager to show him its tangle of cause and effect and to help him understand . . ._

_A male and female vampire took Jonathan's body from the place it had landed outside the window at Hellsing Manor. Their talent for stealth and secrecy was vital, because they knew they would have to sneak in right under His nose . . . When they took him away, he was barely alive, which was what they wanted. He had to be weakened by his injuries, filled with fresh hate and pain, for their plan to work. But they had to keep him alive until he regained consciousness, long enough for him to agree to help them. Their healing methods were crude. Vampire saliva would have solved the problem easily, but it was too effective, too lasting. He sensed their manipulation at work. When he finally did wake, they wasted no time. They told him he would die. The fear crept into his eyes amidst the pain. They offered him un-life, a chance for vengeance. Something he wouldn't get if he died. All they wanted was Him and His mate . . . Jonathan, lacking Integral's morals and fearlessness, took their offer without hesitation. For the first time he noticed a tiny little female, a slave by blood, sitting quietly in the shadows, waiting for her Mistress' command even as the thirst consumed her mind and ravaged her body. She was commanded to turn the traitor, Jonathan. She rose gracefully to her feet and did just as she was commanded. He could practically feel her relief, the soul-deep agony disappearing as she fed on Jonathan's blood. Her self-control astounded him, and he understood that she would happily have killed Jonathan except for the punishment that awaited her should she do so. He smiled at the knowledge that soon she would escape this abuse and torment and find her own way in the world. She backed away from him when she sensed that she had taken enough and retreated to the safety of the shadows. It was not long before Jonathan was seized by the first steps of transformation when his body would undergo the most crucial changes that would turn him from man into monster . . ._

_'Enough now? You know. You know.' The whispering voices seemed to tug at him, unseen hands tugged at his and pulled him forward, and he knew that there wasn't anything else to see there that he hadn't seen before._

_'Integral. What happens to her?'_

_Forward, just beyond the place he'd started from, and at first he didn't know where he was . . . but soon he focused on the subject of his inquiry, lying motionless, bloody, at his feet. She was silent, beaten, broken, his dear, brave knight, Integra . . . he feared for a brief moment that she was dead, until she turned her body suddenly to look through him at something he couldn't yet see. It was something familiar, something comforting, he knew, because her expression became calm as her gaze followed its movement. He couldn't tear his gaze away from Integral to see what it was, but finally it moved into his line of sight. Alucard. He knelt beside his master. They spoke softly to each other, and he didn't need to listen to understand what was going on._

_'Does she live?'_

_'Can't say. Can't say. Not determined. Can't say. Not allowed.'_

_One thing he had learned as he had grown with his gift was that some things he was not allowed to see, because it would alter a decision that needed to be made out of blind instinct. It was easy to accept._

_Suddenly he felt a pull on his soul, on his whole being. There was something They wanted him to see. They were eager to show him, they pulled at him like a child, anxious to lead him. He let himself be guided, because times like this were rare but powerful and vital._

_He stood in nothing. Literally, all around him there was emptiness, and he felt the sheer panic and pain of being held in a place like this. They sensed his discomfort and hurried along, until he was finally inside the 'world' again and surrounded by Life. He blinked against the sudden brightness and his whole body shuddered at the return of sensation. He was standing to the right of a paved road, with knee-high grass brushing his legs and the smell of rain filling his lungs as he inhaled deeply. On the other side of the road, facing him, was a female vampire. She was old, like him and Alucard, but she was not the same, and he knew she would be coming . . ._

_'Who is she? Where is she from?'_

_'From Nowhere. Nowhere. From Nowhere. From Everywhere. From Fate. She comes.'_

_Then his vision went black again, but not as before, because before there had been nothing to see, and this time the world was merely being hidden from his Sight. He would not be allowed to see more if he continued to inquire after her, the voices told him. It didn't make sense for them to do that, to be so determined to bring him here then blind him this way._

_'Enough. No more.'_

He would see no more. His mind resisted the return journey. For Malakai, it was easy to open his mind to see what not yet occurred, and the events of the past that lay beyond the confines of his own experiences (though they came easier when he slept or happened on their own). It was returning to the waking world that was difficult, so much so that is was agonizing, and his whole body shook with violent tremors and pain roared in his head. His mind always wanted to stay in that calm, peaceful state, and resisted him when he tried to force himself to recover.

Abigail sat, awestruck, watching and literally feeling the awesome effort he exerted in his mind even though his body didn't move an inch. Finally, his eyes fluttered and he seemed to become aware of the world around him again. He stifled a moan of pain. A wave of disgust washed through him. When had he become so susceptible to pain? Since Alexander Anderson had stuck him with a syringe and injected an experimental substance into his body that made him temporarily human. It wasn't all bad, he admitted. But the side-effects . . . the strong reawakening of emotions that he had managed to push aside for so long, fear and sorrow, the new sensitivity to pain . . .

His vision had gone on, in reality, for half an hour, and during that time he had been silent and immovable as stone. Victoria had watched him carefully, deeply concerned. Alucard, on the other hand, had showed no interest. The visions were nothing new to him. In fact, it seemed that he had barely acknowledged it, but for the brief glance in Malakai's direction and the subtle change in his facial expression. No, he didn't really care. But he did care about what the white-haired vampire _saw_.

Alucard. Malakai grimaced. Did Alucard suffer any of the strange side-effects that plagued Malakai so? It didn't seem that way.

He sat at the old table with his feet propped arrogantly on the worn wooden surface, tilted back in his chair. His hair, the length of it normally hidden, tucked into his large red coat, spilled down in a black curtain over his shoulders, down his back. He was dressed only in a white button-up shirt and black pants, the bottom tucked into his boots. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top just enough to expose the smooth, white flesh of his throat to the dip of his collarbone. Victoria had convinced him that there was no need to walk around his own home dressed in what she called his "battle armor" some years ago. It wasn't like he couldn't dress himself up in a split second the instant he was called anyway. But the facial expression was the same. The intense stare of Alucard's eyes was as aware and all-encompassing as ever. The slightly mocking curve of his mouth, and the glint of white fangs behind his lips reminded any and all who looked at him that he was dangerous, that he was anything but human. No. Alucard showed no signs that he suffered as Malakai did. Not one.

"What did you see?" Alucard asked softly.

_'Jonathan Hellsing! Jonathan Hellsing! Jonathan Hellsing!'_

"Jonathan lives."

Victoria's eyes widened. How could that be? No human could have survived after that fall . . . still . . . his body had disappeared so soon afterwards, and they had not been able to locate it despite their best efforts . . .

"He will come here."

"Of course," Alucard said, mostly to himself.

"We will be attacked, but it will come when we do not expect it. Integral will be mortally wounded in the battle."

Alucard slid his feet off the tabletop and leaned forward intently, and Victoria couldn't tell if he was smiling or not.

"And?" Alucard urged, not sounding in the least bit eager or anxious.

"You will make it in time."

Alucard already knew that Malakai could not see what her decision would be, but he seemed satisfied, and leaned back again, absorbed in his thoughts.

"Nothing else. Nothing is clear at this point. Everything depends on chance and choice,"  
Malakai shrugged.

As Abigail listened to this she felt fascinated, and at the same time, as though she had faded into the background. But she wasn't terribly upset. Her interest in Malakai had, she admitted to herself, grown exponentially as of a few days ago, and every new thing she learned about him seemed to build on this interest. She felt a faint flush of embarrassment rise in her cheeks, courtesy of the blood she'd had a day before.

Malakai seemed to know the direction of her thoughts and their gazes locked. He gave her a small smile. It was a smile of amusement.

She dropped her gaze to the black-and-green snake tattoo winding 'round his wrist and curving across the skin of his hand. It was detailed and vivid. She stared at it, unable to tear her gaze away, and her eyes began to play tricks on her. She imagined that it moved, that it rounded out and became a flesh-and-blood serpent, that it slid and tightened around his forearm. And that it grew. It was slow at first, the growth. But within moments the snake she thought she was imagining measured six inches thick and more than three feet long, and Malakai was gripping it around the middle of its body, and she saw that the skin was smooth and pale and unmarked. No tattoo. Suddenly she understood what she was seeing. Malakai's familiar. The snake didn't get any larger but she felt somehow that, if he willed it, the snake would grow so much larger, would become larger than any real serpent in the world could, for him. The black and green scales were even more vivid than the tattoo had been, and they shone brilliantly. Abigail was seized with the desire to reach out and touch one, to see if it felt as smooth as it looked, but she knew she couldn't. Touching another vampire's familiar without permission seemed wrong to her, though there was no rule against it. It reminded her of reaching into someone's chest and grabbing their heart.

Abigail didn't even notice that Malakai was looking at her, measuring her reaction, taking in her expression. Nor did she notice that the serpent was, too. In fact, if she had noticed, she would have seen that the look in Malakai's eyes was mirrored in the black eyes of his familiar, how out-of-place this almost human expression was on the face of a snake. But it wasn't a human expression. It was far too intent, too aware.

Malakai was soon bored with studying her, however, and he became deep in thought. He hardly seemed to notice the weight of his familiar, far greater than any real, natural serpent, resting almost entirely on his hand.

Neither Victoria nor Alucard payed even the slightest attention to any of this. It wasn't new. It wasn't even _interesting_, except that Victoria had not realized that the tattoo on his forearm had had anything to do with his familiar. But it didn't really surprise her, either. What did surprise her, though, was thatAbigail _did_ notice, and the fact that Abigail was so aware of Malakai. It raised questions in her head.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the familiar disappeared and Malakai's skin was again colored by the strange tattoo.

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep," he said abruptly.

Before Victoria could even offer so much as a 'goodnight, sweet dreams', he was gone.

Malakai didn't go straight to bed, however. He lingered on the roof, taking in the night in all it's splendor, feeling the moonlight shining down on his body. It threw shadows across his face, made each individual spike of white hair shine and glow. He felt the tension seeping out of him and he sighed.

He stayed on the roof for a few hours, face upturned toward the moon. When he finally did go to bed, he dreamed of the face of a dark-haired vampiress who would turn his life upside-down . . .


	13. Chapter 12

Author's Notes: I don't know what happened to the crazy awesome support I was getting . . . but thanks to those of you who reviewed Ch 11. What's with that? Did you not like it or something? I mean, I know it took me a while to get it up, but . . . . . . not THAT long. Though I will admit that THIS took FOREVER . . . I had writer's block, sorry guys. I'm going to try to get out a chapter every couple of days from now on but I make no promises . . . writer's block freakin' kills.

Nights came and went without incident. For a normal person, that was nothing out of the ordinary. For Integral Hellsing and the Hellsing Organization, it was disturbing. For the vampires, it was boring.

But anxiety plagued Victoria constantly anyway, a little voice in her head told her to be ready, be on her guard, keep watching. She knew something of monumental importance was going to happen, and by God she was going to be ready for it. This, however, annoyed the hell out of the human units under her command. She was irritable and it showed.

"All right. That was good. I want you to hit them in the exact same spot as before. Remember, the head or the heart, and _only_ the head or heart. Blowing their legs off won't do you any good," she called to the humans.

She had moved them outdoors, spent several hours giving careful instructions, telling them exactly how she wanted the targets set up. She wanted them to move. Real vampires and real ghouls didn't sit still, she told herself, so it was important to her that her men could hit an unpredictable, moving target, every time, in the same place. More importantly, was that they could do it easily. These soldiers were not like the ones who had served when she first joined Hellsing. _Those_ soldiers, those brave servants of God, had taught her so much. _These_ soldiers, on the other hand, were learning from _her_. Thirty seven years had opened her up to aspects of her powers she had never known before and shown her new ways of ending a life that thrilled her vampire soul to the core. Despite her vast knowledge on the subject of vampires and death, she doubted that these men would ever really learn enough from her to keep from dying in battle in the end. They would not be as lucky as the fifty-odd soldiers she'd thrown retirement parties for over the past few years.

It saddened her a little to think this way but that was how it was. These men only worked for Hellsing. The soldiers she'd fought with when she first arrived had _lived_ for it.

"Now, what the hell are _you_ doing? I told you, we're staying out here until at least one of you lazy, worthless bastards can hit the target in the same damn place every single time!"

. . . they wouldn't live very long at all. But this, of course, was just one unit. There was one other under her command. An elite unit made up of soldiers from the old days and new soldiers who had had very intense special training and took their job seriously. The dedication and diligence of this unit made the day-to-day stupidity tolerable. It was a small comfort to her to know that they were as bored and restless as she was.

Hours went by . . . . . few of the men had managed to do as she asked (such a simple thing to ask), but it was time to pack it up and move it inside. It was about time, in her opinion. Victoria was tired, her throat hurt, and she was sorely disappointed. She wanted to go to bed.

"Victoria."

She turned to face the owner of that unmistakable voice.

"Hm?" she mumbled as she started to tear down the cardboard targets.

"Come with me," Alucard said in that soft tone he used so rarely, holding out a hand to her.

Victoria dropped the shredded pieces of cardboard. Cleaning it up was someone else's job, anyway. She closed the distance between them and took his hand, smiling for the first time in days. He led her away from the manor and then phased, pulling her with him through shadows and nothing, till he detected the opening he wanted and slid through with her in tow.

They were in an alley off a dimly lit street. He tugged on her hand gently as she stood trying to get a feel for their location, and led her down the street, towards the the smell of trees. Victoria was intensely curious now. They rarely ever left the manor, much less together, and they were rarely ever alone. Alucard didn't seem to crave the closeness and quiet time alone with her that she wanted so badly with him.

They walked down the street hand-in-hand, almost like any other couple, except that . . . well, okay, so they weren't anything like any other couple. He was monstrously tall, walked with the grace of a predator and looked every bit like the prince he had been once. His crimson eyes were uncovered, the sunglasses stored away till he should need them, and his long, long hair fell down his back in smooth waves. His face, devoid of the violent, hysterical expression it usually wore, was smooth and calm. He looked like the twenty-nine-year-old he had been when he was turned. Victoria, for herself, was slightly taller than the average woman, though nowhere near as tall as Alucard. Walking around with her eyes uncovered made her uncomfortable, as it normally attracted strange looks, but tonight it was too dark for any normal person to see the color, so she didn't mind. She, too, walked with a deadly grace common to all vampires, every step looking more like a great cat stalking its prey than a normal person walking. The innocent expression on her face was tempered by experience and pain, making her look more mature than her eternal twenty years.

It was the way they held hands that threw it all off.

"Alucard, where exactly are we going?" Victoria asked him softly, leaning into him as she spoke.

He didn't answer her. A small half smile curved his mouth, and he shook his head. He was walking so carefully, slowly, and unusually noisily, making sure that anyone who saw them would only see a man and his lover walking together at night, nothing at all unusual.

"You'll see," he told her quietly.

"Should I be worried?"

He shook his head, and the small smile grew, baring his white teeth ever so slightly.

After a short walk around several street corners, and a longer walk down a dark, lonely dirt road, he stopped. They were standing in tall, wet grass that brushed her thighs and smelled like rain, in the middle of nowhere, it seemed, though the city really wasn't that far away. He tilted his head back to look at the sky.

"Where are we? What is this?" she asked softly, curious.

He out a finger to his lips and _sssssh_ed quietly, then pointed up at something in the sky.

She looked up. The breath she was taking escaped her.

The moon was full.

And not only was it full, but it was _big_. Bigger than usual, it seemed, with the stars shining in a way she could never see in the city. The sky had never seemed so full of light. The moon, the bright stars, and then, the softer light from stars much, much farther away, creating depth in the blue-blackness that was the sky. It was so beautiful . . .

"Oh . . ."

Alucard smiled, pleased that she appreciated it.

It was then she noticed Malakai. He was standing at the top of a small hill not far away, the highest elevation to be found in the open space they were standing in. His arms were spread, lifted up to the sky, and his head was tilted back. He seemed so unreal. He was standing there shirtless, his pale skin almost glowing with the moonlight, silver in color, and his hair seemed alive in the soft breeze. The look on his face was ecstatic. He looked as though he couldn't take his eyes off the sky, the moon, couldn't tear his eyes away even if he tried. He didn't seem to notice them at all, so enraptured was he.

So they were all there together then. It felt right. It felt good.

"I'm glad."

She looked at Alucard.

"It feels nice. I can't explain it. It's a serene feeling. Like all the pain is gone from my body."

"Wonderful, isn't it?" he grinned.

"Yes!"

But she knew this wasn't what he had brought her here for. As beautiful as it was, as much as things like this seemed to mean, this wasn't it. It would be a stupid mistake to think it was.

"So why are we here?"

"Because you can _see them_ now," said Malakai from where he suddenly was beside her, pulling his shirt on over his head.

"See . . . who?"

"Our enemy," Alucard replied, the dark viciousness in his tone intertwined with absurdly violent delight.

His face was split in an absolutely evil grin.

She glanced around, suddenly alert, angry because he had led her into danger without warning her, and a little afraid, because she didn't know what to expect. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

Malakai put a hand on her arm, his eyes telling her not to be afraid, and he pointed silently to an area shadowed by trees and an old shack that was falling apart.

She looked, staring intently into the shadows her vampire vision should have had no problem penetrating. But she couldn't. She couldn't see through it. And suddenly, she realized . . . Malakai wasn't pointing at something hiding in the shadows, he was pointing _at_ them. The darkness that had once looked natural was not what it seemed. It was moving, writhing.

"_Shit_," she swore, tensing.

"They won't come over here, Victoria. They cannot," Alucard told her.

"Why?"

"Because they are afraid."

_Afraid? Of what?_ She wondered.

And then, looking up at Alucard's face, she understood a little better. She had been with him so long she had almost forgotten what it was like to be afraid of him.

"What are they doing?" she asked softly.

"They're watching. And hiding," Malakai said.

She looked at him questioningly.

He saw her look and explained.

"They are watching something in the city. They are waiting for something. I don't know what it is they're seeing, but they're afraid of it, and us being here only makes it worse."

"What are they?"

"They used to be vampires."

Victoria looked at the shadows, then looked at Alucard and Malakai.

"I don't get it," she said bluntly.

She still couldn't see what they were seeing. All she saw was shadow. Alucard touched a hand to her face, fingertips at her temple. And then . . . she saw.

They were twisted, ugly. The pale, silvery vampire flesh was now a sickening doughy white, rotting about the mouth. Their lips were gone, their mouths gaping open, black clotted blood dripping in places. Their hair was patchy and grimy, when they had any at all. Some of them had no eyes, but she knew somehow (a shiver went up her spine) that they could see. They could see through those bloody, empty sockets. Their jaws were slack, much like a ghoul's when it wasn't biting down on something. They moved strangely, almost like a jerky limp, but she felt certain that if they got it in their minds to chase her they could catch her so easily. They were naked, and she could see that one each of their bare abdomens, there was a single raw, gaping wound in the shape of a hand-print, and she was reminded of the night when Malakai had awoke from a dream with a bleeding, sickening burn on his chest in that same shape. It seemed also that with her new sight came smell, as well, because from them she smelled rot and blood and burning flesh and something she couldn't put a name to but that her mind wanted to call hatred.

"Oh, God," she said, gagging, a hand flying up to cover her nose.

This was why they kept themselves invisible. It made perfect sense.

Alucard let his hand drop to his side. She had obviously seen all that she needed to see. She looked about ready to puke.

"I-I want to go," Victoria muttered, wrapping her arms about herself as if cold, "I want to leave."

Before she could blink, Alucard's hand grabbed hold of her arm and he phased them into the safety of their home. She dropped numbly into a chair.

"Is she okay? I could hear-" Abigail's voice came from the other side of the door.

"Come in." Alucard cut her off abruptly.

Abigail opened the door. Victoria looked up at her as she did, and something in her eyes told her that the blonde vampire had seen . . .

"So you saw them."

It was not a question. And Alucard offered no answer.

"What were they doing? Where were they?"

"Hiding outside the city."

"How did you find them?"

"Malakai and I found them last night. We guessed, correctly, that they would still be there tonight."

Abigail nodded, watching Victoria carefully. She wasn't surprised, really, because she had had nearly the same reaction the first time she saw them, and deep down she wondered how Alucard could be so unaffected by them. They were ugly, evil, tormented, and they had a way of sickening a person right down to their very soul. Maybe Alucard just didn't have one.

"Is this something you should be telling . . . your-err, master?" Abigail asked awkwardly.

She had not yet come to fully grasp how Alucard could be a servant to a human, much less to the _Hellsings_, especially when she could feel his power and knew that he could kill everyone in this household in a second if he wanted to.

"Yes."

"I can stay with her, if . . ."

Alucard disappeared. Well, there was her answer. Abigail moved closer to Victoria, kneeling in front of the chair so she could look at her face. It was expressionless, blank.

"They just suck it all right out of you, don't they?" Abigail smiled understandingly.

Victoria nodded. Even though she wasn't exactly sure what "it all" was, it was true, she knew. She didn't understand why she suddenly felt so . . . cold, so depressed, so numb.

"It goes away after a while. It's not a big deal."

"What do you mean?"

Abigail pulled a worn chair to her side and sat in it.

"It's sort of like . . . I don't know. They are so full of hatred for the world, so angry, so violently sick inside and twisted, that all nonhuman creatures are affected by it, vampires most especially. They are ugly, unnatural . . . but, being away from them gives your mind time to recover from their presence," Abigail said, twirling a strand of hair between her fingers.

Victoria thought that over. It made sense. She was not strong enough in her power to see these creatures, but . . . apparently she could feel them. And sitting there in the safety of her lair, her home, she could feel the chill on her soul begin to fade away and the spark of life in her body to grow bright again. Suck it all right out of you, indeed.

And . . . that was when she noticed . . .

"Where is Malakai?"


	14. Chapter 13

Author's note: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

At first it felt so good. A surge of energy, like an electric current, moved through him, buzzed through his veins, and he felt that he could trace the vessels' many pathways through his body by this feeling alone. And then . . . . there was nothing but pain. It moved him, shook him, raised his body off the cold metal surface and, ultimately, humiliated him. He cursed, yelled, threatened. He screamed. He begged for it to stop. Sobbed like a child when it didn't; cried helplessly for a period of time unknown to him. There was no light there, no indication of how long he had been held strapped to the tabletop, spreadeagled, naked. How long he lay there while they burned him with her blood.

The circles of blood they traced on his abdomen and the pain they brought were forever scorched into his memory. The feel of her hands, so soft, the touch on his skin so gentle, the mind-numbing agony that arose from that slight contact, would be forever in his mind. Forever a part of him, his living flesh. Because that gaping, raw wound did not heal. He felt sick inside knowing it never would.

But he was immortal. That was what mattered most. He would live forever, and Hellsing would fall.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Where is Malakai?"

Abigail glanced around the room, cast out her senses, and came up empty.

"He didn't come back with you?" she asked warily.

"No, he didn't . . . I though he did . . . but we left so suddenly . . ." Victoria replied, anxiety creeping up her spine.

"Damn. You left him _there_?! With those _things_?!" Abigail exclaimed, standing so suddenly that the chair tipped backwards, anger and panic building in her chest.

"Oh, God."

Victoria felt sick.

* * * * * * * * * *

She didn't speak as she approached him, but she really didn't need to. The grass whispered against her legs as she walked, telling him that someone was coming. The ground shook ever so slightly with her passing, telling him of her graceful step. The air carried her scent, the familiar sweetness of blood mingled with the unfamiliar smell of her body; telling him, as nothing else could have, that she was a vampire. And that, like him, she was many hundreds of years old.

He didn't need to open his eyes to picture the shining crimson irises she was sure to have.

It was his vision approaching him. A strange thrill ran up his spine.

"_From Fate. She comes._"

He heard the final footstep fall before she stopped several feet away and knew she would come no closer. He opened his eyes.

"Beautiful night," she commented quietly.

"Yes," he replied, casting a glance to the silver shine of the brilliantly full moon.

Malakai didn't know what else to say. Odd, really, because he had never been at a loss for words before.

So instead of making a fool of himself with words as he knew he would, he turned to look at her in silence.

She was everything she had been in his vision, brought to glorious life. Everything from her graceful, casual posture to the shimmer of her wine-red eyes to the silver glow of her skin under the moonlight.

And what he _felt _from her was just as real.

There are certain emotions not normally present in vampires. Gentleness, compassion, and humility are strange companions for bloodlust, rage, and love of destruction. Wisdom of the darkest nature was perfectly common; but the deep, intimate knowledge of passion and love of life he could see on her face were rare even among the best of humans, much less the undead.

Yet here it was. Malakai felt it radiating off her the way he felt Alucard's constant bloodlust, his love for Victoria, the sickly-sweet tinge of madness lurking in his mind.

She was a walking contradiction. Her vampire soul, full of darkness, coexisting with the light of her heart in a way that colored her life a strange shade of grey. He could see it in her smile, the curve of her mouth that was neither cynical nor sweet.

That strange thrill ran up his spine again.

"Have you been waiting long?" she asked him.

"Not really. I didn't know when you were supposed to show up. I only knew it would be here," he confessed.

Her small half-smile grew. The blatant affection on her face was unsettling to him, though somehow he felt that it was right, because she had been here all along, hadn't she?

"_From Everywhere. From Nowhere. From Fate. She comes._"

Suddenly, he saw her turn her gaze to the mutilated creatures standing in the shadows.

"It's so sad," she murmured, "That they would give so much for such a lie."

"I don't understand," he said.

She turned her gaze back to him, matching crimson eyes meeting as her expression became thoughtful and his showed that he was clearly not paying attention.

"You will know soon," she told him softly, "More than you ever wanted to know."

He didn't like the sound of that. No; he really just did not like the sound of that at all.

But it wasn't like he was getting a choice.

It was at precisely that moment that he finally sensed the other vampire.

_Well fuck me sideways, _he thought irritably, _If I'm not just asking to be killed tonight._

The other vampire walked slowly and calmly to stand beside her, and Malakai, irritated as hell, took a moment to observe them. The newcomer oriented himself around her comfortably, looking very much as if he belonged there at her side. They were nonthreatening, in a way, simply because of the serene expression on their faces, but it was clear that they could be very, very dangerous when threatened themselves. Malakai, however, had no intention of threatening them.

"Shall we go?" Malakai asked, smiling grimly.

One more thing to irritate Alucard. Splendid.

* * * * * * * * * *

His eyes narrowed as he focused on Hellsing Manor. It was so quiet . . . . . . .

It almost made him laugh. Did they think they were so safe? Did they not think that he would be coming back? They had forgotten about him so quickly.

His howl of fury tore itself out of his throat and shattered the peace of the moonlit night. The inarticulate cry was accompanied by a powerful mental voice that shook the earth and sent all creatures of the night into high alert. Dogs and wolves howled in agony and fear, and cats screamed, and small human children, sensitive enough to sense the activities of the undead even in their dreams, woke sobbing.

_DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!_

* * * * * * * * * *

Victoria had been sitting in the library when she heard it, poring over books of vampire lore, trying to look for something to explain the strange way her body and mind had been changing lately.

The silent scream ripped right through her. She clapped her hands over her ears, trying to stifle the noise, but with no result. It was all inside her mind. She called for Alucard, and began trying to weave a barrier around her mind, tried to close herself off from this painful invasion. She passed out on the library floor.

* * * * * * * * * *

Alucard lounged in the beat, rough wooden chair. There was nothing for him to do tonight, _again_, and he was confined to the house for some off-color comment he'd made, something about having to go slaughter a village just to get some entertainment. Integra had not been amused, and so to punish him she had ordered him not to leave the basement. _Again._

"'Unless hell spills over onto the earth, I don't want to _see you_'," Alucard quoted mockingly.

And then he heard the howling cry, the soundless roar of fury ringing inside his head, powerful enough to move the earth, powerful enough to break into Alucard's psyche without a formal mental link. And he heard Victoria's scream of agony, pleading with him to help her, and felt her fall unconscious.

Son of a bitch. Alucard shot out of the chair, phased himself out of the stone basement and into the library. Because it sounded an awful lot like hell had spilled over to him, and he wasn't going to sit around waiting for his master to agree.

* * * * * * * * * *

Malakai had taken the form of a mist, wanting to soak up every last second out in the fresh air and the moonlight before going into the stone confines of Hellsing. The others followed him, and the three of them blended together in a gentle white fog that mixed well with the existing weather conditions.

And the it hit him, knocking him into his human form so violently and so abruptly that he fell from the air and slammed down onto the hard ground with a loud thud, and then a thunderous crack. It felt like he had broken some bones.

Then the female fell, landing hard on her knees and skidding a small ways across the dirt. The male landed hard, but he landed on his feet. The force left an impression of his feet in the ground. Malakai groaned as he stood, feeling the broken pieces of bone rubbing against each other with a scrape that made his teeth clench. He inhaled deeply, feeling each fracture heal, paying careful attention to the long, slender bones of his hand, making sure that each break mended perfectly. When he was absolutely sure that it was taken care of, he turned to his companions.

_The female's knees are scraped, _he thought to himself, smelling her blood. And then an irritating thought came to mind; he still did not know what to call them.

"The thought just occurred to me," he said, "I can't keep thinking of you as 'the male' and 'the female'. I still don't know your names."

The female, who had been crouched down and watching the scraped and bloody skin of her knees heal with something like fascination, straightened with a smile.

"I am called Deyavi," she smiled, "He is called Gavril."

He smiled in return. Vampires were not in the habit of sharing their birth names with each other, and since the change from human into vampire was seen as being a second birth of sorts, they usually gave themselves a new name to symbolize their new life. This was so even for most originals. She had told him the name she had chosen for herself, in true vampire custom.

"Name's Malakai," he replied.

Deyavi nodded absently as she scanned the sky.

"What was that?" she murmured.

"It was a . . . mental shout. Loud enough to knock us out of the sky, apparently."

"It was a voice I recognized," Malakai muttered, trying to remember who it was that had a voice like that . . .

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Deyavi gave him a knowing look.

"Fuck."

_Jonathan._

* * * * * * * * * *

Alucard appeared in the library, and lifted Victoria from the floor. At his touch, the strong mental barrier around his own mind encompassed hers, shielding her from the violent echoes of the psychic force that had threatened to drown her. As soon as he touched her, she woke up.

"Alucard," she said groggily, touching her head delicately as if she was afraid it would break.

"Get up," he commanded, helping her stand as he spoke, "We must find my master."

When Victoria was righted, the phased into the office, finding Integra holding her head in that way she did when suffering from a massive migraine.

"Alucard," she said angrily upon seeing him, preparing to launch into a furious tirade, "I told you-"

"Hell has officially spilled over, My master," Alucard smiled.

Integral froze.

"Then that was-"

"The screech of the devil blasting through the gates of Hades, most likely."

Integral's face grew hard and cold. She pressed a button of her telephone and barked quick orders to Adam before turning back to Alucard and Victoria.

"Search and Destroy."

"Yes, My master."

Alucard and Victoria phased out of the office.

The dark, ear-to-ear grin on Alucard's face was enough to frighten even the bravest of Hellsing soldiers. To Integra, it was just Alucard going to work. She was used to it.

As ghouls and monsters made of shadow poured into London, the soldiers of the Hellsing Organization prepared for battle and deployed. The vampires of the Hellsing Organization skipped over the distraction. They flew as a swarm of bats to the source of the problem.


	15. Chapter 14

Author's Note: I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I also have this story posted on as FARE, and if you want to read it there, it's got actual chapter names and descriptions that I didn't feel like putting up here. On MM it is mentioned that Ch 13 has an up-and-coming Pt. 2. Just thought that would be interesting for you to know.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that the attack on the city was just a diversion, meant to keep Hellsing busy while the real enemy went to work. But then, that was why Hellsing had two vampires in its employ, in case things like this happened.

Alucard, much more experienced in the fine art of coordinating oneself as a swarm of bats, tried to hold Victoria's struggling flock together, keeping stray bats that could have been an arm or a leg from flying off. It slowed them down just a bit, but they still made decent time. They were flying through a small cloud when Malakai finally decided to get in touch.

_Where are you?!_

It was Victoria who snarled back irritably, _We could ask you the same thing! Where did you go?! I was going to go out looking for you! I was about to send a bleeding search party back to that field!_

_Why didn't you?_

_Integra said no. She thought it an unnecessary waste of resources to send a unit out looking for you when you'd probably just come back on your own._

_Well, she was right. Oh, wait! I see- is that you? I've never seen such a messed up-_

_SHUT YOUR MOUTH._

_Fine._

As Alucard and Victoria exited the cloud, they saw Malakai standing on the ground, pointing up at them and talking to a pair of figures standing close by. A dark-haired male and female vampire, from the looks of it. Malakai finished speaking and then launched his body into the air, his body disassembling itself smoothly into a dozen large bats twice the size of Victoria's.

_It's easier if you have less bats,_ he told her.

The male and female vampires still on the ground looked at each other and then simultaneously dissolved from head to toe into bats of their own.

Alucard said nothing.

_It is the one from my vision, _Malakai said pleadingly.

Still, Alucard said nothing.

_Come on. She has to be important!_

Silence.

_I was going to take them to you right away till this happened!_

Crickets chirped and the wind whistled by their ears.

_Sigh._

Their flight continued for about ten minutes more before Victoria's bats suddenly dive-bombed out of the sky.

_What the fuck are you DOING??_ Malakai snapped.

_Can't you see that??_

_See what? I don't see anyth-what, that hillside?_

_Yeah. Doesn't it look strange to you? It's unnatural. Which means that it's man-made. Who would build something so far out here?_

_Let's go._

The other three vampires dove from the sky and landed, smoothly transitioning into their two-legged-hands-and-feet-and-one-set-of-eyes-human-but-not-quite bodies.

Victoria led them right up to the small, unnatural hillside. The grass and dirt had been stripped away leaving a bare curve of rock exposed to the elements. Malakai leaned down and pressed his face against the stone.

"It's warm," he reported, "And it's vibrating. There's something underneath there. I can hear something down there."

"Vibrating?" Victoria asked, laying her hand against it.

"Like a generator."

"Mmhmm," Victoria murmured, running her hand over the rough, weathered stone.

She barely noticed when a slender hand placed itself next to hers on the rock. She glanced over at the strange female standing beside her. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line and her head was cocked to the side as if listening intently to something. Her fingers brushed away small shoots of grass growing out of the crevices.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," Victoria commented.

"No, we haven't," the vampiress responded absently, "I am called Deyavi. And you are Seras Victoria, yes?"

"Yes, err, that is, I prefer to be called Victoria," she replied, "No one calls me Ser- okay, so some people still call me Seras, but most just call me Victoria."

Deyavi gave her a faint smile and nodded absently. She was intently focused on the rough, hard surface before them, digging her fingers into a crevice searchingly. Victoria had a feeling that Deyavi somehow already knew all of this. She glanced back and saw Alucard, sitting relaxedly on the wet grass, of all things, watching them. Malakai was crouched down next to Alucard looking worriedly at the sky, and the strange male was standing, arms folded, watching Deyavi expressionlessly but intently.

"And what's your companion's name?" Victoria asked, growing weirdly anxious as she watched Deyavi reach above her head with her other hand to dig her fingers into another crack in the rock face.

"He is called Gavril."

"Is he your . . . mate?" Victoria asked, hesitating on the unfamiliar term.

"He is." Deyavi said, her mouth curving into a soft smile, her features gentling at the turn the conversation had taken.

Her love for Gavril was obvious. Just that one small smile spoke volumes about how precious her mate was to her. Made sense, after all, vampires rarely took mates to begin with, and once they did, they stayed together for life. Victoria had read about it in Hellsing's extensive library, and had read a legend that said that vampires could actually sense their "soulmate." It was so fasci-

"I've found something."

Deyavi's voice rang out clearly and strongly, demanding attention. Victoria, standing closest to her, peered curiously. They were quickly joined by the indolent males, leaning in behind them.

"Did you not smell it from the beginning?" Deyavi murmured, "There was always something wrong here. You did so well, Victoria, to notice this place."

"Well, thanks," Victoria replied, leaning forward and inhaling the scent of the rock.

It smelled like stale air. And blood.

And rot.

"Well done, Victoria," Malakai grinned.

Alucard barely gave her a glance, but tha tmomentary eye contact spoke volumes. It was the same look he used to give her back when she was still just "Police Girl", and she had done something to please him.

Wonderful. So maybe her spaztic, ADD flock of vampire bats had done something right after all.

Alucard slid an arm between them to touch the stone himself and gently pushed Victoria out of the way. Or, rather, as gently as was possible for him. She still had to stumble a foot backwards just to keep from falling.

"It reeks," he said quietly.

And then he brought his fist down violently onto the rock, and they heard a thunderous crack, and a split appeared to stretch out from where he touched the surface of it, and then it _collapsed inward_.

"Damn," Malakai muttered, "I know it smells bad but you didn't have to break it. Now half of Britain knows we're here."

Alucard shot him a look that effectively silenced Malakai. For the time being.

Nothing would keep that bloodsucker down for long.

Victoria held her breath, so as not to inhale the clouds of dust and mold that filtered up into the air, and peered down past the pieces of rock into the blackness.

"I can't really see anything. Looks like it's just a straight drop down," she reported.

"Then let's get dropping already," Malakai said impatiently, "I want to know what it is that's had me sitting here dying of boredom for the past fifteen freaking minutes."

"Brat."

No one needed to look to know it was Alucard that spoke. Victoria pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile, as she hoisted herself up, kneeling on the edge of the dark hole. She swung her legs over and placed her feet on one of the broken slabs of stone slanting down into the hole and slid carefully downward, until her legs were down in the inky darkness and, queerly, she could no longer even see them, even with her vampiric vision. It felt like dipping her legs into muddy water. Ugh.

"This weird," she muttered to herself, "I don't like this at all."

"You don't have to do it," Alucard spoke from close beside her, leaning over her shoulder to watch her sink into the hole with deep suspicion and dislike written across his face, "I'll throw Malakai in."

"No, I'm already halfway there," she smiled at his attempt to comfort her, "I might as well. I'm going to have to go in sometime."

"You would not throw me in," Malakai scoffed.

Alucard gave him another piercing look, and the silver-haired vampire was again silenced. Because Alucard _would _throw him in. He was like that.

Victoria slid the rest of the way into the hole and rested her back against the rock, sliding down by inches, feeling with her hands and legs to find the edges and bottom of the pit. Finally, she found bottom, and stood herself up straight. It was not so far down, only ten feet or so. But when she looked back up, she found that she could see nothing. In a moment of panic, she pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. It was dark. Not like night-time. It was dark; poisonously, frighteningly, horrendously dark. Oh, God.

"Alucard," she called, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice, "I've hit bottom, it's not far. You'd better get down here."

Alucard appeared at her side, using her presence as an anchor to phase. Malakai followed, nearly landing on top of Alucard in the small space. Deyavi came down the same way that Victoria had, sliding down the rock, Gavril coming down after her, a hand on her waist protectively with a look of utter distaste coming over his face as he tasted the foul air in the pit.

"This is too crowded," Malakai muttered irritably, sliding against the wall away from Alucard.

The dark-haired vampire was annoyed with him already. Wouldn't do well to exacerbate the situation.

"Follow your nose," Gavril said.

Alucard didn't hesitate. He brought his fist hard against a spot on the wall, shattering the rock barrier standing between them and freedom. Malakai feel backwards into the new hallway.

"Damn if I didn't think you were going to hit _me_," he grumbled, running a hand through his hair as he stood.

Victoria slid through the opening carefully, unholstering a gun and sliding in a magazine of silver bullets. She didn't look behind her to see if Deyavi and Gavril followed, but heard their footsteps as they climbed through the entrance. Alucard stood at her side, following along after her with long, easy strides, silently but without fear of discovery. The hallways was narrow and could only old three people standing side-by-side, shoulders touching and a little cramped even then. It was dark with that same thick, inky blackness, and they all held their breaths (comfortably, since vampires didn't need to breathe, uncomfortably, since it deprived them of their ability to speak and a sense of smell), moving silently and swiftly. The hallway didn't appear to have an end. After a moment of walking, however, Victoria noticed a light at the end of the hall, motioning for everyone to see, and as they approached it they felt the slimy darkness seem to get thinner and thinner until it dissipated entirely right at the light's edge. Victoria closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself for a potential battle, and then opened them and stepped into the light.

She found herself in a large chamber with natural stone walls and ceiling vaulting high above her head. Someone had hollowed out the hillside and then sealed it over with stone. To think that if they had only allowed the grass to grow back Victoria would never have noticed it. But rather than a natural, rough floor, someone had polished and stained the stone to a high, black, glossy shine. It was like walking on glass. Even the softest footstep seemed to make noise.

She exhaled the stale air in her lungs slowly. She could practically see the black air leave her body from when she had had to inhale it in the drop down. And then she inhaled. And nearly puked.

It smelled of congealed blood and rot and decaying, burnt flesh. Too much for a sensitive vampire nose, and she could even taste it lingering at the back of her mouth. She gagged once, tried to calm herself, gagged again.

She felt a strong, reassuring hand touch the back of her neck and she leaned back into Alucard's comforting, familiar touch.

"Compose yourself, Victoria," he commanded softly.

She nodded weakly and her eyes followed the other three vampires as they cautiously entered the room. They had all felt with their minds what Victoria had experienced with her body, and knew the air was vile to breathe, so they still held their breaths.

Momentarily she was able to stand upright on her own and she explored the room with her eyes, moving to the center and turning in a slow circle as she examined her surroundings.

Around the room there were niches carved into the walls where stubs of candles smoked from recent use. The walls were painted with blood, blasphemous and hateful messages and symbols dried to a brown color with time. She stepped back, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling, and felt her foot touch something hard. She looked down and saw chains attached with metal hooks and nails to the floor. Heavy and archaic chains, like old dungeon shackles. She imagined a human being chained to that floor, held immobile while unspeakably evil acts were committed against them, helpless to save themselves from an death they could clearly see coming.

And she also imagined willing victims laying quietly on the floor, waiting to be mutilated and changed into something evil and horrendously deformed.

She shivered, and ran a hand through her blonde hair, trying to wipe those images from her mind.

Alucard stood some distance away, taking in everything with seeming indifference, a feeling coming over him that somehow, he knew exactly what went on here. As if he'd seen it before. A first glance made the room seem sloppy, ugly, messy. A practiced eye, however . . . a vampire eye . . . could easily see that each and every thing in this room was placed precisely according to some exact plan. Each niche holding a candle in the wall was placed exactly the same distance apart. The floor had been polished and colored with something (blood, perhaps?) that turned it a perfectly smooth, glossy black. It must have taken so much time, so many months of effort, to accomplish even just that. The messages on the walls appeared random, splashed on the walls in a fit of rage. But upon closer inspection it was easy to see the pattern, each symbol coming together to form something elegant and violent and unspeakably evil. Even the chains were placed perfectly, in the exact center of the room. Not a single nail holding them to the floor was even the slightest bit out of place.

It was too perfect. This kind of perfection had taken so many months to achieve. Which meant that someone had been plotting and working right under his nose, and he had had no idea. For months. It was downright irritating.

He bared his fangs in agitation.

"There's another room!"

He found Victoria standing by one of the walls, peering at it with frustration, while Malakai grinned at her.

"I don't see how there's another room here. I don't see anything!"

"That's because you aren't even looking in the right place. And did I say the entrance was in the wall?" Malakai asked, his wildly amused, smug smile widening.

"Where do you get off being so damn superior?" Victoria muttered at him irritably, stepping back.

"I'm just that amazing, you know."

"UGH!"

Deyavi and Gavril were standing close by, examining one of the candle stubs, arguing quietly over it, when they heard the loud slap and looked up at Malakai holding a hand to the back of his head and Victoria smiling triumphantly.

Deyavi grinned, flashing elegantly pointed fangs at Victoria in her approval.

"What are you two talking about?" Malakai said poutingly, waving a hand in Deyavi's direction, "It's just a candle."

"The wick is still glowing from a recent flame. It must have been extinguished minutes ago. We can't figure out if they left because they heard us or if they were gone before we got here," Gavril explained.

"Well, either way," Malakai muttered, crouching down by the floor, "We still have to get out of here if we are ever going to find out what this is about."

And then he knelt, sliding his palms across the glossy, shining black floor, closing his eyes. A little furrow of concentration appeared between his brows, and then his hands began to sink through the floor. Once his hands were through to the wrist, he suddenly fell through the floor. Victoria bit her lip in mild worry.

Beyond the silken, shimmering surface lay the gateway to hell.

* * * * * * * * * *

Abigail screamed, the sound more feline than human. The hands that held her now were the same that she had been trying to escape for two years. She had sacrificed so much to stay out of the reach of those hands . . . all for nothing now. The creatures held her firmly, and despite her immense inhuman strength she could not break free. Screams tore their way out of her throat. She felt clotted blood dripping from mouths whose lips had long ago rotted away dripping onto her skin, her clothes.

One of the creatures that held her seemed less decayed, less doughy white, than the others. The eyes were still intact in this one, and she could see that they were gentle brown. Human eyes in a monster's face. This one leaned toward her, the raw, open, bleeding hand imprint on it's abdomen brushing her bare skin, and her skin tingled sharply where it touched her. And then it began to burn. And she saw the silvery-white skin where it had touched her with the wound begin to rot and crumble before her eyes. Blood poured out of her body from the wound, and she tasted it in the back of her throat.

The same monster who had touched her, the only one who was not holding her immobilized, leaned in toward her, bent its head toward hers, and when the open red and black fissure that was its mouth came close enough that - had it lips - it could have kissed her, she saw a soft white cloud begin to grow between their mouths. Slowly, her consciousness, her coherency, began to slip away, and her last thought was that she was dying. It was taking her vampire soul right out of her and now, she would never get to know if vampires went to hell when they died.

Author's Note: Black Fang 01, when I create a new character, picture in my head what kind of person they are and what they look like and where they came from, sometimes the name just comes to me. For OC s that come in pairs, if I'm having difficulty coming up with a name, I try to use the character I've already named as a reference. The biggest factor, if I had to pick one, would probably be where they came from.


	16. Chapter 15

Author's Notes: Next Chapter will be Part two of "Primal Scream! Die Hellsing, Die!". There will be a part three. Just thought you should know.

The feeling of passing through that black, polished floor was unlike anything she had experienced as a vampire. But it reminded her of human experiences, like diving into an intensely cold pool of water. But it was not an unpleasant cold. It was the soothing chill of cold water running over an angry burn, of ice soothing a sore muscle. Her body complained to her after a moment when she realized that she had, dangerously, stopped moving and had let herself rest inside the stone of the floor, though only for a moment. She willed herself to move the rest of the way and fell through to a chamber below, her landing graceful yet still slightly jarring her bones uncomfortably.

She smelled Malakai in the dark of this place, smelled metal and bleach and blood. When Malakai put his hand gently on her shoulder, she turned to him and saw him staring in horror into the darkness behind her. Alucard dropped silently and slowly, practically floating in his descent. Victoria peered into the darkness (though she could see, she still recognized that it was, in fact, dark) and saw that their room was a small washroom, and that Malakai was staring into the adjoined room.

She stepped forward to have a better look but Malakai's strong hand on her shoulder forcefully restrained her, and she felt that she would certainly have bruises if he increased the strength of his grip even a little. She looked back at his face, concerned, and disliked intensely what she found there. Such horror and pain did not belong on his beloved face. Someone she cared for as family should not wear such an expression. He was biting his lip in that nervous fashion of his, a hand on his chest, and she could not be sure if it was a gesture of comfort, to touch the white-gold pentacle resting against the skin there, or a gesture of remembered pain, for there also was the place where he had once borne a raw, bleeding wound in the shape of a handprint. Surprisingly, it was Deyavi (whose entrance had been largely unnoticed) who offered comfort to the terror-stricken white-haired vampire.

"We must do this thing," she murmured to him softly, her hand touching his face gently to force his gaze to meet hers, "This enemy which causes you so much pain is not here, and this will be our only chance for you to learn what you must learn in order to defeat them."

He closed his eyes, and nodded. When he opened them he had let his hand drop from Victoria's shoulder and she had moved cautiously toward the dreaded room. He remembered his vivid dream, remembered the enemy that had reached out of the blackness and tried to force him with pain to submit . . .

Victoria held her weapon securely in her hands. Malakai was not a coward, not easily taken to fear or displays of weakness, and anything that frightened him that badly would be taken seriously by her. Alucard followed after her, the Casull gripped casually in one hand. She wondered idly why he did not draw the Jackal, but let the thought go. It wasn't that unusual for him to choose his older, less powerful weapon to begin a battle. The Jackal wasn't always needed and Alucard did not waste bullets. Deyavi and Gavril had no weapons that Victoria could see but that didn't matter much. Vampires did not need guns. They were just nice to have around.

She focused now entirely on the room before her, leaning her body against the doorway, shutting out thoughts of her companions. They could certainly take care of themselves. She swung her body into the room, making a sweep with her weapon, from right to left and back, more slowly the second time, checking for hidden enemies. Her sharp, crimson eyes gave the room a once over, seeing without seeing, looking for signs of life. She found none on the floor, but when she looked up . . .

A small, sharp intake of breath followed her horrendous discovery. The ceiling was high, plated with metal. The room was almost the same size as the room above, emphasizing how far she'd had to drop to get there. And hanging from this ceiling were chains from which there were suspended dozens and dozens of humans. Some were obviously horribly mutilated, others seemed whole until the gentle rotation and sway of their chains revealed their faces, with lips sliced off with precision, a strange black and green beginning to tint the area. Others had had their eyes ripped out, hair sliced off, fingers twisted back and back and back until they were nearly broken off. All seemed to be in various stages of development in a few common traits. Doughy, sickening white skin. Some were covered entirely in it, for others, it was spreading outward from their abdomens to the rest of their bodies. Their hair was falling out, gently pooling upon the floor with only the softest of sounds. Their mouths were rotting around the place where their lips had been removed.

Each and every one had a wound in the shape of a hand imprinted deeply onto their abdomen.

She gagged on the air of this place, even fouler than the air in the above chamber. It was fouled with blood and bleach and burnt flesh.

Almost as horrifying was what she saw when she let her eyes drop and surveyed the room before her, truly seeing it for the first time.

Strapped to steel tables, naked, stretched out like pagan sacrifices in a ritual of blood, were the prone bodies of five vampires. Some of the tables were tilted up so that the vampires were suspended almost vertically. Others were laid completely flat, blood dripping in a maddening rhythm onto the metal surface, their head tilted and stretched to the side, straining to get at the little droplets with their torturous rhythm. Blood was smeared on their faces; around their eyes, around their mouths. Their descent into the rotting creatures that they would inevitably become was clearly much slower, because their skin was, for the most part, still a silvery-white, their eyes still intact. They did not have hair, but it had been shaved off, and blood was now painted in strange patterns on their scalps that struck Victoria as vulgar, though she couldn't say precisely why.

_Circles of blood . . ._

They were all unconscious. Unmoving and silent as corpses, they did not breathe and their hearts beat so slowly that Victoria could have imagined them to be ordinary dead people . . . except that she knew better.

All of them but for one. This one, lying silent and alone in a corner of the room, was withered and dry like an unwrapped mummy. The skin was taut and drawn over the bones like paper, brown and ugly. It was skeletal, obscenely so, with stringy bits of hair falling over its shoulders. She shuddered. Its body was long and she imagined that if it had stood it would have been nearly as tall as Alucard. The hair was white-silver like Malakai's and she again felt a shiver run through her as her mind connected her beloved brother in blood to this dried out husk of a body. She was prepared to turn away and move her focus to another part of the room when the unthinkable and horrifying caught her full attention.

It moved. Writhed actually, noiseless except for the rustle of its paperlike skin. Strained weakly against the leather straps which bound it to the steel table.

Victoria pressed her sleeve against her mouth to stifle the scream.

Alucard watched impassively up to that point. He moved forward and, catching her gently by her arm, propelled her toward the table. She resisted only slightly, knowing that, if he wished her to approach the thing on the table, it was inevitable. He stopped at the table's edge, and bent his dark head toward the browned, mummified body that was somehow still alive. The smile spreading slowly over his face was wrong, given the circumstances. His eyes, with their irises the color of blood, slid over the moving corpse.

"What do you crave?" he asked, that insanely, obscenely, excitedly rough voice of his.

The vampire's mouth opened and a soft, creaking whoosh of air emerged, but no sound. It didn't matter. Alucard understood well enough. And so did Victoria. She felt sick inside. Deyavi's slender hand on her arm gave her something to focus on. It showed how out of it Victoria was, that she had not noticed the approach of the female vampire.

"Victoria."

Oh dear God. He wasn't going to ask her to -

"Give me your arm."

Yes, he was.

She sighed. And then offered her arm, as ordered. He gently slid a finger over the skin, and Victoria found herself wondering at the blood that welled up along the path it had taken across her wrist. He was even wearing gloves. She stopped trying to figure it out before it gave her a headache. Some things, she did not want to know.

He tipped her wrist so that the blood dripped downward, pattering onto the vampire's face and streaming into its mouth. She grimaced. The corpse-vampire did not react for a long while, became still as stone. But it didn't last long. Suddenly it was sitting up, the bond which held its arms broken, and an inhuman scream ripped through the throat. It writhed violently. The steel of the table dented and creaked under the force. Victoria took an involuntary step back.

The transformation occurring before their eyes was astounding. The brown, taut skin began to lighten in color and the skeletal frame began to fill out with flesh. The eyes opened and they watched as the shriveled, dry little prunes of its eyes became hydrated and full and white, with vivid red irises. The hair darkened and became black, thick, and glossy, fanning out over its shoulders. The scream changed from a brittle, shrill cry to a full, rich, human sound of pain. The body that now lay before them was perfect, alive, and female.

The silvery-white skin was bare and gooseflesh began to prickle up across the female vampire's arms. Scars laced across her stomach and arms, traced thin, nearly invisible paths up the side of her neck to her jaw. She was exquisitely formed, and looking at her, Victoria felt embarrassed for her nakedness. The nudity of the others was easy to ignore because they barely resembled anything vampire, or human. She was clearly not one of them. Victoria looked around for something to cover the revitalized female vampire and saw nothing immediately. Deyavi offered her own jacket, a loose, soft covering that draped to her knees and when buttoned would cover the nude female modestly. Victoria took the offered jacket and helped the shivering ex-moving-corpse into it, watching the slender fingers do up the buttons in the blink of an eye.

"Who are you?" Alucard demanded.

"I am called Lansing," the vampiress answered.

"How did you get here?"

"I was captured."

"What did they do to you here?"

"They tried to make me into one of them," Lansing answered, gesturing to the creatures dangling from the ceiling and strapped to tables.

"Why did they fail?"

"I was one of the first they tried to create. They did not know what they were doing. They used me as an experiment. They did not succeed. I would not submit to the madness. Instead I chose the Sleep."

The Sleep. Victoria had heard of this thing. It was what vampires had done in the past when too many humans had discovered their existence. Hide underground, lay oneself upon an altar, and sleep. The body would eventually starve itself into a physically dead state, but the soul would remain, asleep, inside the body, waiting for someone to nourish the body with blood. It took a while to accomplish. For some it took centuries to decay to the extent that Lansing had. She must have been desperate, to have forced the process along so far in such a short time. And yet she had been moving when they arrived, so she had woken somehow in the meantime, without the blood.

"How did you stay awake without the blood?" Victoria asked.

"I woke only when you arrived. I could smell your blood."

"That was enough to wake you?"

"It was."

Lansing, with the graceful legs and the slender body, unfastened the buckles on her ankles and swung her legs modestly over the table's edge. Malakai offered her a hand and Victoria saw that he was behaving strangely.

It was his eyes that shocked her, however. The expression in his eyes was one of awe, and tenderness. The way he had positioned himself between Lansing and the others was protective. His lips were parted and they trembled ever so slightly. What was going on? What had happened to him in this hellish place?

Lansing smiled and accepted the offered hand with one of her own. Victoria's head was spinning. Too much new information to absorb in too little time.

First, There was Deyavi, with her dark, silky hair that cascaded in a straight, smooth fall midway down her back. Deyavi with the crimson eyes and the silver-white skin and the pearly, elegant fangs that were slightly longer than Seras' own. The vampiress who stood barely an inch taller than Seras' five-foot-eight, with simple blue jeans and a dark grey shirt with sleeves that came to her elbows and a wide neck that exposed the slightest bit of her shoulder and her collarbones. Deyavi, with the slender artists' hands that Seras could clearly picture touching Gavril's skin with love and gentleness and passion, or crushing an enemy, or embracing a victim in their last moments.

And Gavril, the tall vampire who stood even with Malakai in height, the mate of Deyavi, with the black hair that framed his face, cut short over his ears but allowed to grow to the base of his neck, probably so that Deyavi could enjoy running her fingers through it. Gavril, with the eerie, unusual eyes of an electric green that was foreign and intimidating in their rareness. Gavril, with the sensual smile, and the silken, powerful voice, who spoke so rarely, who stood protectively near his woman, with his leather jacket draped over her shoulders lovingly. With the graceful, powerful hands that she had seen sneak gentle, reassuring touches to Deyavi's arms and hands and hips when no one was watching. Gavril, dressed in a plain, black longsleeve shirt and jeans, with boots tucked underneath, and a white-gold chain disappearing into the neckline of the shirt.

Lansing, with the man's name, dressed only in Deyavi's long jacket, a complete stranger who had been woken from a vampire's sleep with Victoria's own blood, who made Malakai tremble with some unknown emotion. The vampiress with the glossy hair the color of night, black and not black, that brushed her shoulders, with the crimson eyes that saw everything. Lansing, with the perfect, barely curved body that stood at level with the the bottom of Malakai's lower lip. Lansing, who had been a victim of some terrible evil. Lansing, who had, miraculously, not been turned into a monster.

It was too much. Too many new people at once. Too many things Victoria wanted to know and understand. Three life stories and a bigger, menacing mystery to solve and unwind.

And to think that only a day ago she had been complaining of boredom.

And to make things better, Alucard, her own mate, her former master, the scourge and love of her existence, was laughing at her.

Oh, he wasn't being loud. But he gentle lift and fall of his shoulders and the fang-baring smile on his face spoke volumes louder than his voice could reach. She wanted to slap him.

"SO," she said irritably, too loudly, turning away from Alucard, "Can you tell us more about these things? Surely you must know something about how they are made, what they can do . . . who makes them?"

Lansing smiled shyly.

"I know many things about this place. But, I need clothes. And we need to leave this room. It is not safe, even for the undead. As you can see from my companions on the tables over there," she replied.

A rich, accented, haunting voice. A perfect match to Malakai's own. Victoria decided not to dwell on it. She merely turned and strode back to the washroom they had entered from. As she turned she saw Alucard's darkly handsome face, no longer laughing, touched with a calm smile that did not reach his eyes.

It was his smile of apology. It was the best she was ever going to get.

Once they had assembled in the washroom and Victoria had firmly locked the door to that strange room with the monsters-in-progress, Lansing took to rifling through the cabinets until she found her clothes. A simple white shirt and pants that looked just the way a pair of pants should. Soft, worn, and gently faded. They politely turned their backs while she dressed, more out of modesty than necessity (they had already seen her naked, after all), and when she had finished, Victoria waited eagerly for the answers to her questions.

"This place," Lansing began, sitting on the floor, "has been here for years. I am not sure how long. I was brought here during the construction of the upper chamber, when the floor was still rough and the room itself still very small. These rooms, and some others, were already complete."

"How did they capture you?"

"I was asleep, lying in my coffin, and they sealed it shut and brought me here in it, over sacred ground that forced me to sleep. Had I not been protected by my last domain, I would not have survived the crossing.

It angered me, and I struggled for many months against their efforts to use me for their experiments. But eventually, they managed to starve me into submission. It was difficult for them, because I frequently attacked and fed from their own men, but they succeeded in quieting me.

They strapped me to their metal table and tried to change me. At first they tried to simply cut me, cut out my eyes, remove my lips, and so forth. But a vampire's body heals from nearly any injury inflicted upon it, so they did not succeed. Then _she_ came with her partner, finally, to observe their work herself. And then everything was pain. She would let them take her blood from her body, at first, to use on me, but found it ineffective. It was not directly from her, so it lost its power, and the symbols that they drew on me did nothing but sting my skin. Then she interfered. She would cut her fingers with her own fangs and used the blood on them to draw their designs on my face, my chest and stomach and hands.

But they still did nothing. They were using an old text, you see, to find whatever incantation they were painting on me, and they were making mistakes.

When _she_ read it, there were no mistakes. It was when the circles of blood that she traced on me began to burn into my skin that I knew I had to sleep. This ceremony they were trying to perform requires an aware, sane, coherent victim, conscious of pain and danger. In the Sleep, this would be impossible. I summoned my will to force the process to speed up, and eventually I was useless to them. They shoved me into that corner, and there I have been until you woke me tonight," Lansing finished.

Victoria sat, absorbing this information quietly.

_Circles of blood . . ._

That was what that meant. They burned the victims with her blood. Circles surrounding the eyes, mouth, and around the symbols on the shaved heads.

She ran a hand through her own short blonde hair and sighed. This was all very interesting, but it wasn't what she needed to know.

She didn't see Deyavi's bitter smile.

"What are these things? What powers do they have?"

"They are the walking dead."

That didn't make sense.

"Vampires are the walking dead," Victoria said impatiently.

"No. We are the undead. Our hearts beat. We breathe. We have souls. These things do not have hearts. Their lips have been removed so that they can no longer speak as the living do. The eyes, the windows to the soul, have been torn from their faces. But it matters not, because they have no souls," Lansing explained patiently.

No souls. No hearts. Dear God.

"The walking dead," Victoria breathed, taking in the phrase with new understanding.

Lansing smiled.

"So what do they _do?_ How do you kill them?" Victoria asked.

"They cannot die, because they are already dead. Only the magic of the blood keeps them on this earth. Their minds are full of hatred and self-loathing, and madness, because these are the last things they experienced in life. Only dark things. Only evil things. They struggle to replace what was lost to them, what was stolen from them."

Victoria pondered that for a moment.

"What was stolen . . ."

_But it matters not, because they have no souls._

"Their souls. They . . . suck the souls out of people?"

"Devour them entirely," Lansing confirmed, "Once you are taken by them, you cease to exist."

Sweet Jesus.

"How do you destroy them?"

"Destroy them? You cannot. They can only fall if the blood is destroyed."

"So we have to kill whoever made them?" Victoria asked, comprehension falling in place like puzzle pieces of a long unanswered mystery, "That's the only way. I was told that some of the victims are willing. How is this so?"

"Lies. _She_ comes to them in the night, a true siren. She lies, tells them of a greater power that only she can offer. But they must suffer pain to obtain it, must willingly follow her. She approaches only those vampires with powerlust in their hearts, because they cannot refuse her."

_How sad, that they would sacrifice so much for a lie . . ._ Deyavi's words haunted Malakai and he looked at her.

"You knew, and said nothing," he said quietly.

He did not look at her but it was clear that the words were directed at Deyavi.

"I knew, and promised that you would learn all. I can tell you nothing," she replied sadly.

He turned to look at her, finally, eyes searching.

"Why?"

Deyavi looked at Gavril. He nodded slightly. She straightened from her position against the wall, leaning into Gavril's arms. She lifted her shirt.

There was a scar there, thick and raised and pink. A perfect circle.

_Circles of blood . . ._

She pulled aside her curtain of hair and, slowly, a mark began to rip to the skin of her neck on one side. An ugly scar, jagged, like someone had tried to rip out her throat.

"Lansing was not the only one taken. But Lansing was luckier than some of the victims, taken many years before her," Deyavi whispered quietly, "I was taken, too, many hundreds of years ago. As was Gavril. We were held captive by arts long forgotten to the world. After a half century of agony as they tried again and again to change us, we decided it was enough. We escaped in the only was that was left to us."

The meaning of those words was clear. It was sickening to imagine it. Lovers bent over each other, embracing for the last time as they took turns tearing each other's throats out. And then a slow, triumphant, sad death in their dark prison.

"This is impossible. If . . . but you're alive," Victoria said, eyes wide.

"We were sent back. We died before our time. Fate held us until it was our time to return, and that time is now. Malakai was given a vision of us so that he would know to expect us."

Malakai stared numbly.

_From Everywhere. From Nowhere. From Fate. She comes._

God.

"I am the one who will allow you to destroy the blood."

Her gaze was directed now at Alucard. It was to him that that last sentence had been spoken.

"But why? Why is this happening? What is the purpose behind all of this?" Victoria choked out, looking at Alucard in fear.

Deyavi's gaze never left Alucard.

"They want you. You, and your mate."

Alucard's face was expressionless. And when he suddenly phased, there was no warning. Only a soft whirl of shadows as the dark vampire, the former Prince of vampires, disappeared.

Author's note: Lansing is pronounced like "Lancing", not "Lahn-sing" Just thought you should know. The next chapter will be focused on the events at Hellsing. It will take a rare turn and focus mainly on Alucard, I promise you. Since this is all his fault, anyway. It always is.


	17. Chapter 16

Author's notes: The last few chapters have been more about creating an understanding of the story than anything else; now it's time to bring in some Alu-action. And, could you possibly spare five seconds to review so I know what you think of this? I have had maybe two reviews since chapter eleven. I know you're reading it; I just need to know your opinions. Flames are, as always, welcome.

He felt the gentle weight of thin metal frames and yellow glass in his gloved hand and slid the glasses on to his face. Alucard briskly walked the halls of Hellsing with a determination that could never be matched; should anyone be foolish enough to get in his way tonight, they would surely die.

Everything they had learned tonight was irrelevant, as far as he was concerned. Interesting, but irrelevant. He did not particularly care what plans Fate had laid out for him; he had long ago accepted it as fact that he would be the one to exterminate this new enemy. It was his duty, his right.

His boots, heavy though they were, made no sound. The whisper of his leather coat was the only noise now. He was without his hat; though unusual, it mattered little to him.

Alucard was not in the mood to worry about such things.

He stepped into Integral's office without knocking, as was his custom. What was the point of knocking when she could sense him coming?

"My master. You must leave this place."

She looked up at him, appearing annoyed at his interruption, but he could sense the slight confusion underneath; though the irritation was certainly real, she was used to his interruptions. It was the fact that it had taken him so damned long to respond to her calls that pissed her off.

"I've been summoning you for the last ten minutes, Alucard. Where have you been?" she demanded.

He merely grinned, "I have been busy uncovering the plans of our enemy, my master. Do you not want to hear them?"

Integral sighed. Bleeding git.

"Tell me, then."

He spoke not a single word. Instead, he showed her. She saw a glossy black floor and the blood splashed on the walls. She saw humans and vampires held captive, slowly transforming into something horrifying and empty. She saw a lovely, slender female vampire being awakened from a vampire's sleep, heard her story, heard their enemy's plans exposed.

Her face was expressionless. Then, she seemed thoughtful.

"Our men cannot fight these demons," she said to herself grimly.

No one could fight them. They could not be killed. The soul-devouring monsters, so much worse then the average vampire, were indestructible. Unless you killed the one who made them. And only Alucard could do that.

Alucard grinned, pleased. Integral would not stop him from doing what he had to.

He phased out of the office without waiting for orders. He already knew them well. She had spoken them once this night; no need for her to repeat herself.

Tonight, it would be his pleasure to search and destroy.

He heard his master's phone call, and heard her leave her office, donning a coat as she went, preparing to leave the manor. The enemy was here; it was not safe for her. He walked down the basement hallway, the familiar cold stone greeting him.

He saw Abigail lying motionless on the floor. A frown creased his face. When he came to her side, he knelt, and turned her so that she lay on her back. Her eyes stared blankly up at him, unseeing.

The monsters had been here, led by the traitor himself. Somehow Alucard could taste Jonathan's scent on the air, even down here. Abigail was gone, despite her body lying there on the floor of Hellsing's basement.

The sound of a gunshot reverberated through the hallways as Alucard walked away from the ashes.

He phased, a short jump to the outside. And again, another short jump, until he could see the battle waging on the street ahead of him.

Ghouls poured into buildings and out of them, leaving the houses and apartment buildings strangely untouched. An army of ghouls, many thousands in numbers Alucard had rarely seen. A wicked grin spread over his face.

Ghouls were boring, but at least they could be killed. And it did seem as if the outnumbered human soldiers needed help.

He was in a generous, helpful sort of mood at the moment.

He raised his arm smoothly and fired shots into the mass of ghouls. Empty clip; easy problem to fix. Reload, fire again. And he did. He strode briskly down the road, killing ghouls as he went, ignoring the relieved looks and the calls of the Hellsing soldiers as he came to their aid.

After a time, his insatiable curiosity reared its head, and he went into one of the houses, to discover just exactly why the ghouls were leaving human residences alone, when normally they flocked to such places.

There were no obvious signs that would answer his question, only a mother and her two children hiding under a table, a small revolver clutched tightly in the mother's hands. He left before the woman wasted bullets on him. He went back out onto the street, crushing the head of a ghoul that had fallen under his heavy boot. He heard someone call his name and didn't bother turning around. He knew it was Victoria.

"Alucard," she called again, "Wait up! Oh, damn it-"

His little blonde mate phased to his side and he ignored her. There was no excessive need to acknowledge her at the moment; and an instinct deep within him told him to drive her away, to keep her away from this battle, to make her safe. He had never felt that way before. He had never minded having her fight alongside him. It was different tonight.

"Get out of here," he growled at her, not looking at her and not stopping as he spoke with her.

"No! I can't let you do this on your own. That aside I have orders from Sir Integra to assist in the battle here," she argued.

He rolled his eyes and just that quickly, she disappeared. He sent her in the blink of an eye back to the basement of the mansion, locking her in his room with both the locks on the door and his own safeguards. He heard her scream of indignation inside his head and grinned a fangy grin. At least she was away from here.

_Do you want to die tonight, Jonathan Hellsing?_

It was not long before he approached the place where they waited, a secluded spot by the great river where, long ago, Victoria had dumped the body of Integral's husband into the racing water. He stopped on the side opposite them, strategically keeping his distance for the moment.

His wicked, maniacal grin did not falter as he saw the abominations standing on the riverbank opposite him.

"Hello, son of my master," he said in that obscene, excited growl of his.

Alucard's crimson eyes widened, and his smile spread from ear to ear. His catlike pupils dilated at the thought of what was to come, a small rumble of borderline insane laughter sounding in his chest.

The foremost monster, paler in a different way than the rest, eyes still intact, shifted to the side, catching Alucard's attention. Alucard frowned slightly. Why was this one so familiar? This wasn't Jonathan; that he knew. Unless . . . oh God. Isaac. Jonathan's younger brother.

"Your betrayal runs deep, filth," Alucard said, fury working into his voice, "There are no lines you would not cross, are there, Cain?"

A mocking laughter arose form behind the crowd of mutilated monsters.

Jonathan Hellsing, vampire, monster, traitor, stepped from behind his soul-less brother. His smug smile spread from ear to ear, as Alucard's once had. It didn't look like Jonathan's would be disappearing, though, as Alucard's had. Only death would erase that expression from that hated face.

A death Alucard would gladly deliver himself.

"A-lu-card, A-lu-card, thought he was so smart, so strong, A-lu-card, how wrong, how wrong he was, that A-lu-card," Jonathan cackled in a sing-song voice.

A soft growl rose in Alucard's throat.

"Is it worth it?" he asked in a low voice, "Is it worth it, betraying your family, your country, your race? And what are you gaining from this, Cain? What did they offer you to give them your innocent Abel? What did he do to cross you?"

Alucard did not move, but suddenly his presence seemed to be larger than life. His voice was quiet, but the menace wrapped lovingly in every word was easy to hear, the underlying fury boiling up that would send shivers down the spine of any enemy.

Jonathan was no exception. He recovered so quickly, though, that it would have been easy for a human to miss the subtle shudder and flinch before he regained his composure. Not Alucard. Not the No Life King, the Prince of the undead.

"You all betrayed me," Jonathan replied hatefully, "You allowed that vampire filth to destroy me, you wanted me dead! You took my Hellsing Organization from me. It was mine! My mother was not suited to lead these men. It was MY place!"

"I think someone needs to remind you of your place," Alucard spat, raising the Jackal that had come obediently into his waiting hand, "You seem to have forgotten."

Ever the coward, Jonathan stepped slightly behind the monster that was once his brother, using that body as a shield to protect him from Alucard's wrath. As if a bullet from the Jackal wouldn't rip its way easily through that sickly white flesh on its way to Jonathan's heart.

Clearly, Jonathan _had_ forgotten the power that Alucard's favored weapon was capable of.

A shot, loud and violent, rang out into the air and a moment later an explosion of flesh blossomed from the chest of the once-Isaac. A piercing shriek followed Jonathan's attempt to evade as the bullet struck his side, missing his heart. Alucard didn't acknowledge the miss, simply fired again, and again, sweeping his weapon in front of him, following Jonathan as he darted to and fro, trying to avoid being hit again. But each bullet fired struck its intended target, missing the heart, each hit slowing Jonathan's desperate movements, and when one of the bullets finally clipped his leg, severing it, it brought him down.

Alucard was on the other side of the river in an instant, the Jackal aimed at the precise center of Jonathan's forehead.

The Hellsing traitor's eyes widened. The irises, a shade of velvet red, reflected Alucard's image back at him. There would be no escaping.

But before Alucard could pull the trigger, the silent, gently swaying abominations were suddenly jolted into action by a snap of Jonathan's fingers. They lunged for Alucard, grabbing at his coat, his hair, his hands and legs, trying to immobilize him. Thankfully these were nothing compared to the binding powers possessed by Alexander Anderson's accursed holy scripts, and so Alucard was able to slide himself fluidly from their grasp and phase across the river.

The touch of their bony, clammy hands chilled him even through the thick leather of his coat.

Jonathan's laughter, infuriating, sounded through the night.

Alucard hissed at him, a feral snarl tore up from his throat. He bared his magnificent, elegantly pointed fangs at the filth.

"You cannot get to me!" Jonathan cried, elated and mocking, "A-lu-card, you are not strong enough to destroy me, no matter how hard you try. How does that make you feel, A-lu-card? Does it make you angry, A-lu-card?"

The insane cackle shaking Jonathan's body was unlike anything that Alucard had heard or ever cared to hear.

As Jonathan threw up his hands, he exposed his wrists to Alucard's view. He exposed the sight of the small, pink, raised scars on his arms, the blasphemous symbols etched into his flesh by something more evil and more powerful than himself.

Jonathan, too, had been burned with the blood of their enemy. But he was not like the others. Which meant that they had found a way to perfect their art.

The gleaming madness in Jonathan's eyes suddenly seemed obvious. Jonathan chanted Alucard's name in a little sing-song voice, a childish rhyme to accompany it with its infuriating rhythm.

The soul was still inside the body, but the mind was long gone.

This was how they would bend the world to their will.

An insane vampire was the most dangerous of all.

"I almost pity you," Alucard said softly.

He had fired a last round before Jonathan had had time to blink. The last round hit its mark, perfect, deadly, exploding through flesh, not slicing cleanly through it, on its way to Jonathan's heart.

The ashes bloomed, the mushroom cloud of what remained of Jonathan Hellsing coughing upward before dissipating into the air as if it had never been.

A scream, hateful and anguished, lingered even after the body had been destroyed.

Alucard was already walking away.


	18. Chapter 17

Author's notes: I'm on a roll, damn it! Furthermore, I have decided to spice up your lonely, loveless lives with some lovin's, Enjoy the AxS.

The sun was rising. He had destroyed the traitor, his master's son. His master's son, who had sacrificed his humanity, his sanity, oblivious to the deterioration of his mind. Jonathan, who had become the fruit of their enemy's efforts.

The ghouls had retreated to find sanctuary from the sun, and so had the abominations. And now, so would he.

Time for all good vampires to retire.

She was sitting on the edge of his coffin bed, clothed in her usual sleepwear consisting of soft blue and grey cotton shorts and a long blue tank top, when he arrived. Her whole body trembled with fury, outrage, indignation. The air practically sparked with her intense emotions, and it affected him in a curious way.

He approached her slowly, taking in her expression of anger as he did so. Her crimson eyes narrowed and the little soft hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She was magnificent. His magnificent, furious, delicate, powerful little love. His only love.

He dropped to his knees before her, slowly removing his gloves, his heavy coat, pulled his tie over his head, and let the articles of clothing fall to the floor. He looked up at her, an emotion she would never recognize as adoration written on his face. She looked at him warily, wondering at his game, her anger demanding that he earn her forgiveness.

The fact that he was on his knees was a good start.

He looked up to view her face, their matching eyes the color of blood meeting. The expression on her face was confused. His was unreadable.

He bent his dark head and touched his lips to her knee, not quite a kiss. His bare hands wrapped gently around her small ankle. He lifted her leg, skimming his mouth lightly over it, his hand sliding up to the back of her knee. He kissed the back of her calf, tasting the firm flesh with its soft, smooth, silvery-white skin.

"Seras Victoria," he breathed.

It was in that moment that she forgave him. Her former master, her Prince of the undead, her No Life King. How could she be angry when he humbly fell to his knees before her and touched her so gently? How could she not forgive him when he spoke her name with such reverence?

Victoria reached out and touched Alucard's glossy black hair, sliding her fingers through the abyss-colored strands that cascaded down his back and framed his face.

Alucard looked up at her, all the death and rage and insanity of the night laid bare for her to see in his eyes. Some remote corner of his vampire's soul longing for her to erase it. And she could do it, too, with her strange innocence tempered with wisdom and her stubborn humanity. Both qualities in her that he hated and loved, didn't understand, and somehow needed in her. He needed her to be innocent because he couldn't. He needed her to have compassion and humanity because his was long gone.

Seras Victoria leaned forward and kissed him. She brushed his deadly, elegant fangs with her tongue, and he tasted her blood in his mouth. Long ago, this would never have happened. Long ago, exchanging blood with him frightened her. It was a gesture of comfort that she offered him now, the familiar taste of her blood to mix with his to ground him into this world.

Because he needed it as much as he had needed her to be safe tonight. There were days when he didn't recognize himself and was nearly lost because of it.

He was the darkest, most complex and certainly the most powerful vampire in the world. It was hard to tell where the legends stopped and he began.

Alucard swept his own long tongue across her smaller fangs and the dark, potent, rich taste of his own blood mixed with hers in their Transylvanian kiss. It went on for a while.

Vampires, after all, did not technically need to breathe.

* * * * * * * * * *

Malakai walked slowly along the pathways in Hellsing's vast, lovely garden. The last time he had walked this way, he had been ambushed by the paladin and turned temporarily into a human.

Lansing was at his side, following him silently, content and deep in her own thoughts.

This time, there was no Alexander Anderson to break the peace of the night.

Lansing. She did strange things to him. He had never reacted to anyone this way before, felt such awe and such a powerful protective instinct. No one had ever made him tremble the way he had that night when he had held out his hand to help her.

She was exquisite. She was perfect for him.

A sudden realization struck him. He had an epiphany. His vampire senses jolted with excitement as his mind recognized what his mind and his vampire soul already knew.

After more than five hundred years of waiting he had found what he was searching for.

Vampires were said to have the ability to sense their soulmate.

Everything in him screamed that he had found his.

He stopped walking, and Lansing was so deep in thought it took her a moment to realize that he wasn't walking with her anymore. He stared after her.

Malakai looked like he was seeing her with new eyes.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

He couldn't think of anything to say. He didn't have to. Because she understood. She reduced the space between them with two long strides. He looked down at her, traced her lip with his thumb. When he bent his head to kiss her, she rose up to meet his mouth.

It didn't take words. The sudden feeling that now he was complete in himself was utterly profound, shared by her in the instant of physical contact. A mental bond forced itself into existence, the fine threads of the link they shared wrapping themselves around their minds, winding and twisting until the pathway of thoughts and feelings and memories was unbreakable and permanent.

"Stay with me for ever."

It was a cheesy thing to say, for a human, perhaps. But then, humans did not live forever. Vampires did.

* * * * * * * * * *

Deyavi and Gavril observed the forging of a new bond, the first-time connection of souls, with gently amused interest. For two who had been together since time immemorial, it was an awakening of memories from their own beginning.

The grassy hilltop from which they kept watch over Hellsing manor would soon be drenched in the burning sweetness of sunlight. But that was no reason to hurry along to shelter. They had long since passed the point where the sun could inflict harm upon them.

Gavril held Deyavi securely and gently in his arms as she sat between his outstretched legs. Her back rested against his chest.

The memories of the last time he had embraced her were punishing in their vividness.

The last time he had held her this way, he had killed her. Killed her to free her from their future of a lifetime of pain and horror. Ended her life because he loved her.

And she had killed him, too. She had not passed on alone. They had gone into Fate's warm embrace together, as they were meant to. There could not be one without the other. And Fate had sent them back to the world of the living together.

He would never leave her side.

Just as Alucard would never leave Victoria. Just as Malakai could no longer leave Lansing, though he had known her only a few short hours.

The bonds between a vampire and their soulmate could not be broken. To attempt such a thing could only bring death and suffering.

Why humans did not experience this kind of undying love, he did not know.

Deyavi reached up to stroke the back of his neck with her long, slender fingers.

"These moments will not last forever," she murmured sadly.

"They aren't meant to," Gavril replied in his low, silky voice, tender, lovingly amused, "They would not be so precious if they did."

She considered that and then nodded her agreement.

"I can only hope that we succeed," Deyavi whispered, "Otherwise there will be no more precious moments. Alucard must not fail. We must be certain that he does not fail."

"He will not fail."

The statement was absolute and final.

Author's note: Don't you love the level of confidence everyone seems to have in Alucard's power to provide the happy ending? It's sort of ironic, no? Anyway . . . hope you enjoyed the general fluff. I told you I would find Malakai a love of his very own, and I did, didn't I? That relationship will probably develop outside the spotlight of this fic. There were a lot of things I wanted to try to bring into a Hellsing fanfic, but honestly I don't think I am going to be able to incorporate it all, and I don't think I am going to write another sequel in this series. I may or may not change my mind as it gets closer to the end, depending on where I see this fic going. And don't worry. Soon the mystery of whodunnit and why they did it will soon be unraveled before your very eyeballs. Have I ever really left you hanging before?


	19. Chapter 18

Author's notes: I feel so bad!!!! I haven't updated in forever!!!! I went back and reread Silent Night and no lie, I shuddered. So . . . . ugh. But hey, I was 15 at the time, gimme a break. This chapter is weird. Just some forewarning. But maybe you won't hate me too much. Okay, so with the way this one ends you probably will.

She said they couldn't die.

_The shrill scream pierced the tranquil silence that had settled over them. They were unprepared. They would tell themselves later that there was no way they could have known, nothing they could have done to prevent it . . . . it was a lie covered in the blood of the people they couldn't save._

And she was wrong. So wrong. His hands coated in their black blood was the proof.

_Alucard and Victoria lay quietly in their coffin-bed, arguing quietly. He cradled her hands against his chest and she was soothed by the slow heartbeat._

"_You can't just send me away whenever you please anymore," she told him._

"_I will do as I please," he replied, "in regards to you. I will not have your disobedience getting you killed."_

"_I am not your servant."_

"_I am still your master."_

_She didn't know quite what to say to that. It was impossible to tell what exactly he meant by it._

"_I don't understand what you mean," she said flatly._

"_It means what it means," he retorted softly, and pulled her hands above his head so that she was stretched out over him._

_It was foolish to argue with him. He did not operate by any system of logic that she understood._

_Many hours later they were summoned._

The blood covered his hands. It was smeared on the bare skin of his chest where his shirt had been torn. It covered his face where it had spurted out at him from the wounds he had made with his bare hands, where he had swiped at the drops with a bloodied sleeve. It coated his hair. He was awash in it, the scent and the sticky wetness and the filth of it. He had never felt more alive.

_The library, their sanctuary, was empty of humans. Why would they be there, in the den of the undead? The curtains, dark and heavy, blocked the sunlight from entering the room._

_Deyavi sat with her back against Gavril's chest, reading a book as her foot tapped rhythmically on the wooden floor. The sound and movement was driving Malakai mad, and he growled at her. She raised a brow at him but did not respond. Her foot stopped tapping._

_In spite of the earlier lapse, Alucard and Victoria were arguing again, quietly. Victoria sat atop the large wooden table and Alucard tilted back in a chair with his legs propped up in Victoria's lap. They faced each other, speaking in voices barely above whispers, eyes locked on each other._

"_I am not going to shut myself in a box to soothe your fears. But I promise you, I am not going to die," she murmured._

"_You can't promise that."_

_The statement was bitter. His expression became cold and distant. The lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced. For one who had seen so much death in his five centuries of life, this look, this bitterness, suited him perfectly._

"_I can," she replied firmly, touching the firm line of his mouth with a finger._

_He arched an eyebrow at her._

"_How so."_

_It sounded like an argument, not a question, coming from his mouth._

"_I was sired by Dracula. I am the soulmate of the most infamous creature ever to have walked the earth. If I say I can, who are you to challenge me?"_

_His answering smile reflected a twisted pride. The glimmer of insanity that lurked always just beneath his skin seemed to touch his face for a moment and the bitterness was muted by amusement. She was right, after all. He had turned her. She had his power. She was his mate. There was no room for argument. To challenge her would be to insult himself._

_His dark laughter was quiet, and his mood softened._

He didn't dare taste it. The darkness that made these monsters was not like the darkness that made him and to taste their blood would be to invite death in too closely. But oh, it was such a temptation. The scent of it was sweet and rich with magic and moonlight and the taint of madness. Much like his own blood. He turned sharply and plunged his bare fist into the burned and scarred abdomen of another monster. The brand which was its life, its bond to Her, was shattered in a sickening splitting of flesh, and it collapsed. Alucard shuddered with the pleasure that coursed through his body.

_She had been watching for so long. So long. She watched the manor. Waited for the night to fall. It would have to be tonight. Each and every delay would decrease her chance of success._

_She looked to the male standing at her right. He was a good partner. She had toyed with the idea of keeping him, when all of this was over, but it was too soon to decide._

_If he survived this, he would be worthy to be her pet._

_Her gaze flicked back to the stone walls of the manor._

_Only a few more hours to sunset._

It was disturbingly easy to kill them. It had seemed so impossible before . . . his mind and body screamed at him even now to escape, to flee, and wanted him to be afraid, but this was just a part of their magic, their curse, it was why Abigail had never gotten close enough to kill one. But he kept fighting them. Kept killing. It felt so good, so right, so sick. Even as his mouth watered at the scent of their blood, even as he felt the sweetness of their deaths in his body, he was repulsed by them and his stomach fought him. But it was his body, and he was in control, and he wouldn't stop till they were dead, every last one of them.

_It was so peaceful. They did not speak, not wanting to break the silence that had settled over them lovingly._

_Malakai was rubbing oil into the scarred skin of Lansing's legs. Her eyes were closed and she lay propped upon a pile of blankets and pillows that they had thrown on the floor, wearing a loose grey shirt and a pair of jeans that had suffered the wrath of rusted scissors long ago. Malakai seemed happy, relaxed, wearing his usual ensemble of dark tattooed jeans and a white tee shirt, humming to himself with a slight half-smile curving his mouth._

_It made Victoria grin from ear to ear to see him happy. There was something powerful between them, something she knew because she felt it herself with Alucard. The slightest contact, a look, a stray thought, the sound of his voice all stirred up an electric feeling in her veins. Yes, she knew all too well._

_Victoria stood and walked to the large windows on the west wall, and parted the curtains. The sun had disappeared, the phantom light trailing behind it a bluish-black against the grey clouds. It was finally night. She smiled._

_The earsplitting shriek of the sirens began their wailing, and the peace was shattered._

They had destroyed his home. Fire had devoured everything, the flames licking even at his own flesh as he and Victoria had fought to free all the humans from the blaze alongside the soldiers. But they had been unable to find Sir Integra. He had called out to her with his mind, and she had ordered him to defend the human soldiers from the monsters that flooded the grounds of the burning manor. They were helpless against these, most of their guns lost to the fire and the few remaining were ineffective. So they had rounded up all the humans and set Malakai and Lansing to protect them, and Alucard had gone on the hunt for his master. Something was wrong.

_They phased from the library to security's headquarters to investigate the cause for the alarms, as Integra had instructed them in case the sirens ever went off. It was easier for them to get there quickly and discover the source of the threat, and dealing with such things quickly was an absolute necessity in their line of business. But there was no one there. No one living, anyway._

_Blood was splattered across the monitors and control board. Bodies on the floor twisted oddly and split open from neck to navel. The insides of the dead soldiers should have been strewn across the ground, except for the fact that they were missing. They had been removed somehow, for some reason, and Malakai had a sick feeling growing in his chest. It was time. His vision was coming true. He whispered a prayer to his gods and slowly began to unravel the delicate layer of emotion in his soul. He could not afford to feel. He began to feel himself slip away, and then there was only the instinct. His vampire soul rose from its half-sleep, and smiled. It was time to kill._

He reached out to the network of minds connected to his. He felt blood running down his chest and dripping from his fingertips as his mind touched Malakai's, and felt the soft flesh splitting as Malakai's hand drove into the abdomen of one creature, and the violent breaking of bone as he swept that same hand around through another. He was totally focused on the fight, and did not notice Alucard.

So Alucard moved on, touching Victoria's mind, feeling the cool night air on one side of her face and the heat of flame on the other as she led the humans away from the burning manor. She was calm, analyzing every risk and assessing every move, taking her charges away from the fight by the safest routes possible, sweeping the grounds for the wounded, taking care to dispose of the bodies of the dead, sorry only because they would never receive a proper burial. Her mind focused only in the mission to which she was assigned, she did not sense the touch of his mind.

Deyavi and Gavril were maintaining a strict defense of the grounds, not allowing any monster to leave, not allowing any to enter. They were deadly, efficient. But they did notice his intrusion, and greeted him with a flash of awareness before turning back to their task.

Integral . . . he could not sense her. Where was she? He felt the madness building up in his chest, and a growl rose in his throat, fangs bared. Her scent was becoming harder to detect as smoke built up and time passed. Where was she?

_The first of the monsters to enter the room met the end of Alucard's gun and hesitated, almost studying the shining metal thrust so closely to its face. Then its body twisted and it reached for Alucard's face to press its gaping, rotted mouth to his. He fired a shot, missing its heart as it writhed, but forcing it back. It did not hesitate to move forward again, trying to get close enough to fix its mouth to his and pull his soul into itself. Victoria raised a brow to him and her look spoke volumes._

_'If that thing gets its mouth on you, I'm never kissing you again.'_

_Alucard's dark laughter rang through the halls of Hellsing._

"Alucard. It's Him. Do not touch him!"

The voice was soft, beautiful. The monsters he had sensed following him retreated and he turned to the source of the melodious voice.

He could see nothing, but he could sense her. Something told him it was better this way. If he couldn't see her, she couldn't use him. It didn't make sense, but then, very few of his instincts did. But they were almost always right.

There was a flash of movement at his right and the Jackal whipped up in his hand, too late to catch the blurry form before it vanished again.

Something soft brushed his cheek and he hissed between his teeth. Another blur of movement, this one more defined than the last, crossed his vision and instinctively, he closed his eyes.

If he couldn't see her, she couldn't use him.

He could not allow himself to be used.

He still had to find Integra.

_Alucard could feel the fire eating the manor as if it devoured his own flesh. His connection to this place went soul-deep. But pain meant nothing; it could not stop him as he raised hell and brought all his power down on the heads of the monsters._

_The pain allowed him to watch as his home of so many years was burned to the ground._

_Victoria's mind reached for his periodically and he could feel that she mourned for the loss of their home, but more so for how it affected him._

_But it didn't matter. What mattered now was overcoming this obstacle, winning this new war brought on by an unknown enemy._

_After it was all over they could build a new home._

A choking gasp came from somewhere to his left, as he moved blindly through the smoking, burning ruins of the manor. His eyes opened.

There, nearly hidden beneath a charred beam and pieces of plaster, was a small human woman.

Almost lost within the smell of smoke, was the familiar smell of Integra. By the look of things, this was the ruin of her office, where it appeared she had been trying to save something from her desk, now splintered and black.

Alucard knelt and, carefully inspecting her, swept the wreckage from her body, checking to be sure she had not been impaled by the debris. Integra gasped as she suddenly found herself able to breathe easily.

With a grimace, Integral tried to sit upright. Pain shot through her ribcage and suddenly she was quite certain that at least one rib was broken on the left side, where her body had initially been struck by falling ceiling beam. She gritted her teeth and righted herself. Pain was a familiar enemy. One she knew she could and must overcome now.

Biting back his anger, Alucard slid an arm around her back and pulled Integral to her feet.

And blinked in surprise when a mess of her blood splattered his face.


	20. Chapter 19

Author's Note: Yes, there are some confusing things in the last chapter that don't make sense with the information given in the previous chapters. All will be made clear. So don't hate me! This chapter could be read with Chevelle's song "The Clincher" playing in the background, to set the mood. I know because that's what I was listening to when I wrote it XD

Malakai felt triumph course through his body and something in the back of his mind told him that it was wrong. It was all wrong. What had Lansing said? It seemed so far away now, in this cold place where only blood and madness existed with him.

Deyavi's soothing presence touched his mind and clarity wiped away the fog of bloodlust.

_The walking dead._

_They are already dead._

_They can only fall if the blood is destroyed._

"Fuck."

* * * * * *

Victoria felt the chill of panic radiating from the minds of the humans following her and knew they had to move quickly. She would not be able to control them if that panic broke free. So she hurried them along, keeping them quiet, holding them together. And it was certainly a task, they were so ready to fall apart.

_Soldiers, my ass_, she snorted incredulously.

One of them broke down quite suddenly, wailing loudly, a pathetic cry that made Victoria cringe.

She gritted her teeth and whipped around, ready to give the bawl-baby a tongue-lashing he would never forget, when she saw the monster approaching, too fast for the humans to see.

"Damn it!"

* * * * * *

Integra's blood slid down Alucard's face, mingling with the tainted blood of monsters.

Again he detected movement, to the left of him, but this time he did not close his eyes. So when the body began to materialize from smoke, he saw it. When the lithe form became completely visible, crouched next to his master, tongue stroking Integral's cheek, tasting her blood, he saw it. And when the eyes opened, he saw it, the bulls-eye black and red irises glinting madly.

And the first thought that came to mind was, fucking psychopath Cheshire Cat.

Malakai's foul mouth was contagious.

The hand holding the Jackal whipped up lightning fast and struck the side of the female's face. She staggered back, darting away from him.

But that Cheshire Cat insanity didn't leave her face, and she giggled.

"You're perfect," she purred.

He grinned, exposing fang. This facial expression not expressing gratitude for the compliment in any way. It wasn't a particularly nice grin.

Especially in light of the fact that this Cheshire Cat had just pierced Integral's stomach with her slender fingers, brutally tearing her internal organs, splattering Alucard with her blood.

No, he wasn't particularly pleased.

Integra was dying. He knelt and lowered her body to the ground, gently. He looked up from examining the wound to find the Cheshire Cat was gone.

Good riddance.

Now it was a matter of saving Integral's life. Without tasting her blood, which ruled out licking the wound closed.

Well, damn.

Alucard's grin grew, now a smile of pleasure.

Looked like he'd be getting his way after all.

"My master," he murmured.

Her expression was peaceful. Comforted by his presence. It was ironic.

* * * * * * *

Deyavi hissed in anger. Had she not told them that these monsters could not be killed? Even Lansing had told them so!

The monsters lay quiet on the floor, appearing for all the world to be dead. But appearances were deceiving, and Deyavi felt the cold sting of their magic leaving their bodies. The bodies were destroyed, but the monsters themselves . . .

It was the magic. It was the magic that made them, and it was the magic that would destroy everything in their path. That the bodies had been temporarily incapacitated by the blood seal being broken meant nothing. When _she_ called them, they would rise to do her bidding. And in the meanwhile the magic that animated them would rise to wreak havoc on everything around them.

She moved as swiftly as she could, searching for Alucard, her senses numbed by the cold magic that permeated the air. Gavril followed close behind.

They had to be quick. Soon all of their senses would be taken from them, and they would be helpless.

First, their vampire powers. Then, the essential five senses.

She could already feel it.

The very thing that made a human's blood so desirable was the endless well of untapped magic in their blood. It was why vampires had to feed from humans. Vampires also possessed this magic. But it existed in every inch of their bodies, keeping them alive, fueling their incredible healing processes, and their powers, making them a thousand times stronger than any human both in body and mind. It was what made it so outstandingly difficult to drink another vampire's blood; you could never get close enough to try. In order for a vampire to continue to exist, they had to replenish the supply of magic by feeding from a human. Otherwise, the vampire's body would begin to shut down, and they would begin to decay into the state known as The Sleep. Such was the importance of this magic, that if a human lost too much blood, the carrier of the magic itself, they would die.

These monsters were designed to take that power straight from every living source around them. When it was contained within the bodies, their foul magic could only be utilized by the taking of a soul. A process fueled by the dark,hateful nature of the beasts themselves. But once released from the bodies by the breaking of the seal . . . granted, they had removed the _physical_ threat of the monsters. They wouldn't be tearing anyone limb from limb or sucking any souls . . . but once the magic was released from the bodies, it could leech the power from any living being that came in contact with it.

And in their infinite wisdom, Alucard and Malakai had released the magic, from not one, not two, but several _dozen_ of these foul creations.

Deyavi truly felt that she could scream.

But now all she could do was keep running.

Run and pray she got to him before it was too late.

* * * * * * * *

"My master," he murmured.

"Alucard," she replied.

The pain was outrageous. If having a rib broken was painful, if stabbing oneself through the neck was painful, then this was . . . . . this was hell.

And she knew it would kill her.

"My master," he repeated gently, "Let me save you."

She sighed. Of course, she would have to spend the last moments of her life arguing with him. It was her punishment for . . . well, she wasn't sure what.

"No."

Her vision began to blur a little. And it was growing rather cold . . .

"Master, you don't have much blood left in you. You are going to die," he said frankly, "Let me save you."

"Alucard, you know that I-"

"That you're stubborn?"

Well, that.

"That you're a control freak?"

Yes, that too.

"That you're one of the most strong-willed, courageous humans ever to have walked the earth, and you do not deserve to die like this?" his voice was gentle.

She gritted her teeth against the pain, feeling panic bubbling up in her chest at the singular knowledge that she was not just going to die. That she _was dying_. In that very moment. She would not give in to this, she told herself.

_Give in to what? Your mortality?_ her own voice mocked her from within her mind.

"Waste not, my master."

Integral wasn't sure when she tilted her head back or when he lowered his mouth to her neck.

* * * * * * *

"Vampires are the perfect weapon," she purred.

So much potential. Of course, her beasts had their uses, and they were such fun to create . . .

But they had no soul. They had no power in the face of death. They had already lost the game. They were the walking dead. They stole the life force from the creatures around them and fed her powers with the stolen magic. But they were siphons. Sponges. In the end, that was all.

Only a vampire could snatch a victim back from the hands of death. Bring a dead body to life as a ghoul, or save a human from their mortality. They played the game and walked the line of death. And they always won. Death could not defeat a vampire, not really . . .

And oh, but a vampire with no mind.

Incapable of hesitation. So easy to manipulate. And their _powers_.

A sane vampire was so carefully in control of their power, limiting its use. An insane vampire's powers could be twisted in ways not possible when restricted by a rational mind.

Jonathan had given her the key when he had agreed to be turned. He had given away his pure Hellsing blood so freely, never thinking of what it would cost him in the end. And she had made him pay for it. He was a traitor and he was made to pay for his betrayal. She had tortured him into madness.

His madness, however, a mere shadow of the insanity that grew in the minds of the old and powerful undead. The psychopathy of an isolated vampire.

Jonathan had died in the end because he was young, and foolish, and driven to pointless, impossible vengeance. He had died because he had dared to challenge _Him_._ Alucard._

The Prince of Vampires who would serve her in the end.

* * * * * * * *

His blood washed the inside of her mouth. She swallowed it, and registered the fact that it didn't taste much like a human's blood at all. It was sweet and rich and she thought that if moonlight had a taste, this would be it.

Integral drank greedily of his blood as he commanded.

She wasn't sure when she felt the warmth return to her body or when her vision cleared.

He had taken her blood so that she could be come one of them. He had given his own so that she would be free.

And in turning her he had become free.

He felt it. Her pure Hellsing blood inside his body. He felt the bonds dissolving.

It was ecstasy.

Alucard pulled his wrist away from her mouth. If he gave her too much, he would begin to drain his own powers.

"Integra."

She sat up and was not surprised to find that it was painless. She already knew the wonders of a vampire's blood.

Some of them, at any rate.

But now wasn't the time for reflecting on such things. The tension in Alucard's body told her that there was danger close by.

Alucard stood in a fluid, graceful movement, and brought Integra to her feet with his hand beneath her elbow. It was so strange . . . he felt something in the air. Something terribly cold.

"We must be going. Immediately."

He phased with her in tow. It would be awhile before she mastered her own power, and he didn't have time to teach her.

They were in the middle of a battlefield.

There was a blur of movement just in front of them, and Alucard closed his eyes. Integra closed hers also, unsure of what to think, slightly disoriented from the unnaturally quick transformation.

"Keep your eyes closed, Integra. If you feel vulnerable, reach out with your mind. It should not be difficult. Every time you summoned me as a human, you had to cast your senses outward. Do the same now," Alucard told her.

She struggled with the concept. But she recalled those days when, in fury, she had called him with her mind. She recalled the times when, in desperation, her mind had screamed for his, called for his aid.

Integral felt her mind open up. She could see the world, not as she saw it with her eyes, but as it was. She saw the life force of everything around her, and felt the chill of the magic creeping into the air, something alien and unnatural and evil . . .

"Do not open your eyes," Alucard reminded her sharply, and they began walking again.

His finger rested lightly on the trigger of the Jackal. They walked through the remains of the manor and when they passed by a warped and slightly blackened mirror, Integra was stopped dead by what she saw in her mind.

Herself. Herself, in her mid-twenties, eyes closed, clothing torn and bloodied, reflected back at her from the twisted remains of glass.

"I told you, Integra. Time turned backward for you when you became one of us," Alucard said, almost smugly.

She wanted to slap him.

But it really didn't seem like a good idea at that moment, considering that if she raised her arm, her whole chest would be exposed through the rip in her shirt.

So Integral restrained herself and they pressed onward in silence, leaving Integral to ponder her newly recovered youth.

Her eternal youth.

* * * * * * * * *

Her love for him was everything that love should not be.

It was not the new, bright love of Malakai and Lansing.

She had loved him before the legendary reign of seven kings over Rome, before the Iron Age, which was, to her recollection, more than two thousand, seven hundred years ago. Her love was a corrupt form of itself.

It was not the deeply protective, possessive love of Alucard and Victoria.

The violence that blossomed between them was a self-sustaining pattern, her stark jealousy the catalyst for the end.

It was not the tender, natural, profound love of Deyavi and Gavril.

They had known from the beginning that they were not meant to be together, and yet she had kept her obsessive stranglehold until it killed him. Because he was beautiful, and she wanted him. Because even though he didn't belong with her, he still belonged to her.

These lives were being sacrificed because she owned him. Death had been his escape from her twisted and unyielding love.

But she wasn't willing to let him go.

She refused to relinquish her possession of him. She would not let Death keep him. She would raise him from the dead somehow.

So man times she had stared intently into his blank, unseeing eyes, looking for some change, some spark of awareness that would tell her she had succeeded this time. That she had snatched him back from the hands of Death.

Nothing.

It didn't matter. She would not give up.

She didn't care how many had to die for her to get what she wanted.

"Only one," she murmured softly, her pupils dilating.

Only Seras Victoria.

And then He would do her bidding.

* * * * * * * *

Deyavi ran. She ran until she nearly tripped, and used the momentum to launch herself into the air and dissolve into a small swarm of bats.

As she flew, she passed Malakai, bloody and becoming weary, sitting among a horde of the monsters' bodies. He looked up and saw her and Gavril in their mad flight, and stood as if to join them. But then Lansing came from within the smoking ruin of the basement, carrying something, and he turned his attention to her.

She saw Victoria, running alongside the humans to escape a monster that had apparently avoided Alucard and Malakai's mindless slaughter. They were successfully staying a good distance ahead of the thing, and Deyavi knew it chased them only half-heartedly.

Not until their mistress commanded it would they truly pursue Seras Victoria.

Deyavi cursed mentally.

When Fate had ordered her to return to the world of the living, she had been forbidden from speaking directly of anything she knew regarding the events that would unfold.

She had nearly crossed the line in telling them of how she and Gavril had come to be there in the first place.

_We have to finish this, my love_, she said grimly.

_It will be finished. We will not fail_, Gavril replied, and once more she was awed by his confidence and faith.

_I pray you are right, my heart_, she said softly.

* * * * * * *

The Cheshire Cat was back.

She was walking alongside them companionably, with her hands clasped behind her back.

She was dressed like a damned fool, in Alucard's opinion. No self-respecting vampire dressed like a little human lolita fairy thing. Of course, this wasn't her real body, but why on earth would a vampire choose such a childish glamour?

"You're utterly ridiculous," he said bluntly.

She smiled.

"Oh? Am I? No more ridiculous than the Hellsing walking next to you," she said.

Her smile was sickly sweet.

"So who are you, then? Another misbegotten vampiress come to take over the human world, destroying anyone who has the power to oppose you?" he sneered.

Her smile broadened.

"No. No such thing."

"What then? Come to avenge yourself on the Hellsing for some petty slight committed before her birth?"

"Oh no! I have nothing in particular against the Hellsings."

"Oh? What then? What possessed your foolish self to take on such a disgraceful appearance, and drag your whoring body up from hell to destroy my home and human property?" he said, his voice party a growl, partly a derisive laugh.

"I've lost something."

"How careless of you," Alucard said dryly.

He prayed that Integral would keep her mouth shut. In that moment it was as if the Cheshire Cat had completely forgotten her existence, and he preferred to keep it that way.

"Well, it wasn't quite my fault," the Cheshire Cat pouted, "He ran away."

"You lost your man? Even worse. You aren't making a very respectable impression," Alucard taunted her.

The Cheshire Cat vampire's strange eyes crinkled in a smile. She thought he was teasing her.

"Well you see, my Prince, he has gone beyond my reach. Death has taken him, and I'm afraid I just haven't been able to get him back."

Alucard raised an eyebrow.

"He died," he said flatly, "And this foolishness was meant to do what? Taking lives will not raise him from the dead. No matter how many souls your little toys steal, no matter how many are killed, you cannot persuade Death to relinquish him. It doesn't work that way."

"Oh? Have you ever tried?"

No, but it was a matter of common sense! This Cheshire Cat was beginning to annoy and unnerve him.

She had clearly lost her little mind.

"_ALUCARD! GET AWAY FROM HER!!!"_

Deyavi's voice stormed into his mind and he opened his eyes to see a swarm of bats sweeping down to land several feet ahead of them. Integral was shocked by the force of the mental scream and her eyes opened, and she ducked. The bats formed the bodies of Gavril and Deyavi who ran towards them madly, such a look of panic-fear on their faces that it gave him pause. He turned to see the Cheshire Cat grinning, fangs bared, the glamour gone. She was reaching for him, and his hand shot up and he fired the Jackal. Her hand was blown apart, and she leapt backward, away from him and his gun and his fury.

Her healing powers were incredible, even for a vampire. Comparable to his own, in fact. And he was sure she had not come by this power naturally. The bloody bits of her hand were quickly healed and within seconds she had a new appendage. But rather than come at him again, she giggled and her body dissolved into shadow.

Alucard turned and faced Deyavi.

"Apparently there are certain things you neglected to mention," he said flatly.

She grimaced.

"If it was possible for me to tell you everything, believe me, I would have done so already," she replied.

Alucard understood then.

"It was a condition of your return that you could not tell all you know."

"It was _the_ condition of our return."

He looked up at the darkened, smoky sky and frowned. Integral, sensing that there was too much here she did not understand, went about straightening her clothes and listening. There was no room for her in this conversation.

"So how was it exactly that you were supposed to help me kill this little abomination?"

He returned his gaze to Deyavi and she smiled at him a little sadly, a little secretively.

"I hold her magic in my body. Even Fate was unable to remove it, but it is locked within my blood. I have tasted her blood, I have fed from her."

"You intend for me to take your blood."

"Yes. Gavril's, as well."

"And what if I decide to take all of it?"

"That's your call, Prince."

Deyavi shrugged and Gavril seemed equally unconcerned.

"You're awfully trusting."

"Do we have a choice?"

Not really.

"When?"

Deyavi's jaw clenched and Alucard knew he had asked her a question she was forbidden from answering. Gavril glanced away.

"Well, I suppose we'll have to improvise," Alucard chuckled.


	21. Chapter 20

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews on CH 18, it was nice to see I'm not totally forgotten. I'm moving it along slowly but surely. It will probably be longer than Silent Night, but hopefully I'll be able to keep updating regularly, writer's block permitting or life permitting. This chapter doesn't have a lot of movement, but I felt that this needed to happen. It's not fair to leave them all dirty and grungy-like. I'm going to try and make the next chapter all action-y and whatnot.

In all honesty, she had not expected to see them again, and she wasn't particularly pleased that she had. After they'd managed to escape her the first time – cheated her! - she had thought they were gone for good. It wasn't really fair. Why did _they_ get to come back?

And at the same time, she was somewhat pleased. If they had managed to cheat Death, and return to the world of the living, it meant that she had been on the right track when she'd captured them.

But now they were with _him_, and he would _know_. They would tell him _everything_.

It wasn't _FAIR_!

Her temper flared up and she lashed out, kicking at one of the newly forming Siphons dangling from the ceiling. The pitiful thing made a low moaning sound and blood spattered the floor.

Almost instantly she felt a twinge of regret.

She did try to control her temper, truly. It was what had cost her everything.

It was why he had left her.

But as soon as it had come, the guilt was gone. She perched atop a metal table next to another of the Siphons and crossed her legs, resting her chin on her palm.

Thinking on it, really, Deyavi and Gavril weren't such a threat. Even they could not know the extent of her powers, or the full ins and outs of her plan.

She would pretend they didn't exist.

With them out of the picture, it was a simple matter of killing Seras Victoria.

* * * * * * *

With the humans out of harm's way, Victoria turned her attention to the smoking shell of Hellsing Manor.

Why no one had thought to call the fire department, she wasn't sure, but with the number of monsters that had been roaming the ground, she figured it was a good thing.

She stepped lightly, and picked her way through the manor by memory. The hallway to the library, the hollow remains of Integra's office (she flinched, thinking of all the important papers that must have been destroyed), and finally, the kitchen.

Victoria walked into the pantry and down the stone stairway leading into Hellsing's basement, normally hidden by the shelves and so often overlooked by the human servants.

The other stairway had been blocked off by fallen debris, and she didn't have time to clear it. That section of the basement had been torn up on Jonathan's orders and rebuilt in a more modern style, and as such, had been made vulnerable to the flames.

This section was still made of stone, and had survived.

The air felt thick and the smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, and she could hear the weakened structure of the manor protesting as beams and walls compromised by the fire collapsed.

It was several minutes before the passageway she walked led into the main hallway, and she grimaced when she saw the extent of the damage on the other side of the debris blocking the main stairway.

She turned and pushed the door to Alucard's room, and when it didn't open at first, she kicked the door down. The loud crash of the metal door striking the stone made her ears ring.

"You know, we have one thing in common."

Victoria's gun was in her hand and pointed into the smoky darkness of the room within a second.

Sitting atop the lid of the coffin-bed was a female vampire. Sitting on the bed that Victoria and Alucard shared.

_The woman was sitting on her bed._

A flare of annoyance and outrage curled in Victoria's abdomen and she bared her fangs.

"I can't say I'm particularly pleased to see a strange woman lounging about on my bed. And I am most certainly not pleased to be compared to such a woman."

"Whatever do you mean by that?"

"Far as I'm concerned, only a shameless slag would invade another woman's privacy that way. Sitting on my bed as if you belong there," Victoria said venomously.

The strange woman cocked her head as if puzzled, then smiled.

"But, I do belong here."

Victoria snarled and fired her weapon, and the female dodged them with a careless ease, smiling patiently.

That smile didn't fade an inch when she switched directions and lunged at Victoria.

Victoria barely evaded the first attack. The strange vampiress had long, slender fingers ending in long, curved, razor-edged talons that glistened. Victoria's dive carried her directly into the path of those talons as they arced towards her, and she found that they slid easily into her body, underneath her ribs and upward, toward her heart.

Within moments, they would pierce her heart and her body would crumble into ash.

A shot rang out and the vampiress shrieked, darting backwards, away from Victoria. Her talons, coated with Victoria's blod, dug into the stones of the walls as she clung to them, hissing like a cat.

Integra stood calmly in the doorway, the Cassull steady and deliberate in her hands. Her aim followed the vampiress and she fired again, and again, chasing the intruder from the room with each shot until she had fled completely.

Victoria sank onto the lid of the coffin-bed, sighing in relief. They were silent for a moment as she examined the gaping wound in her side.

"That was incredibly careless of you." Integral said finally.

Victoria nodded and began stripping off the ruined clothing, and turned to the wardrobe to find more practical clothing.

"I know it was," Victoria muttered, "I wasn't expecting that. Didn't see her damn claws til it was too late."

She wiped the blood off her body with the remains of her uniform shirt and pulled on a pair of loose jeans, and slid a belt through the loops.

"That's surprising, given that they're painted," Integral noted.

"I know. I wasn't really focused on her manicure, Sir, I was rathermore concerned with the fact that she was _here,_" Victoria replied.

To the belt she attached the holsters for her handguns (rather large for a girl her size, as some ignorant humans occasionally pointed out, as if that mattered) and her walky-talky, which she remembered only because it was her only means for communicating with the human soldiers from their hiding place.

"She was looking for Alucard's sleeping place."

"Well, she found it. She found _our_ sleeping place," Victoria growled irritably.

She donned a black undershirt, and then a black buttondown with the Hellsing coat of arms sewn onto the right sleeve. She fastened all but the top two buttons and tugged and straightened in til she was satisfied.

"Yes. I suppose that all things considered, you weren't too pleased to find her here. But you do need to control your emotional responses better, really. It could have gotten you killed this time," Integral said sternly.

Victoria tugged on a pair of black gloves, wiggling her fingers into the thin, tight coverings, and then she pulled on her combat boots, lacing them tightly.

Then she let out a sigh and smiled.

"Well I suppose it was just lucky for me that you arrived on time. Now, let's see about getting you some clothes. That suit is ruined, and it's not too dignified to walk around in ruined clothing. It isn't really very practical, either," Victoria said, and Integra began to disrobe.

Victoria wasn't all too surprised to see Integral as she was, with her youth restored and all bloodied and disheveled. She had sensed something a half hour ago that reminded her of the feeling of tugging off a bandaid and exposing the covered skin to air. Or maybe it was more like unwrapping oneself after some silly game played with children who had found a half roll of duct tape and decided to make mummy prisoners of each other. That sensitive, moist, cool feeling across the skin when released from the sticky bonds. But it wasn't . . . . it wasn't really a physical sensation.

But it was then that she knew. Alucard had been freed. And there were only two ways that could have happened.

The fresh, soft spark of life that appeared then told her which.

Integral had chosen unlife. _That _was the only really shocking part.

As she shifted through the wardrobe looking for suitable clothing, Victoria pondered the choice Integral had made.

She had rather thought that Integral would prefer death to unlife, when considering her past actions.

Victoria tossed a towel at Integra so that she could wipe some of the grime from her body and face. Her glasses were also terribly dirty, but her eyesight had been so enhanced by the change that she no longer needed them.

Finally coming upon a pair of dark grey pants, Victoria studied them intently.

The color was definitely different from Integra's usual green and blue, but they were appropriate, and they would fit her well enough. She handed the pants to Integra and turned back, debating whether the white buttondown or the grey would be better.

"We don' really have time for this, Seras Victoria," Integral said as she rubbed the towel wet from the sink over her hair, removing the blood and grime, "Just give me the white one. Alucard won't be pleased we've kept him waiting."

"He can shove it," Victoria muttered absently, handing the white undershirt and buttondown to Integra, "What's he going to do to me anyway?"

Integra said nothing as she shrugged into the white buttondown and fastened it all the way up with deft movements, pleased to find the Hellsing coat of arms on the sleeve.

"I don't imagine he'll do much but mock and tease and complain," Integra replied, tucking her cross pin into her pocket.

"Well, his complaining never hurt anyone. He's a rotten brat anyway; it won't kill him to wait, and the threat's all but gone for the moment so it's not as if we're missing anything," Victoria told her, handing her the Cassull by the barrel and gesturing for Integra to follow.

The backpack by the door was filled with ammunition rescued from the basement, and Victoria was ever grateful that all Hellsing's successive retainers had followed Walter's lead in storing it in the stone room down the hall form Alucard's. Victoria slid the strap over her shoulder and unholstered one of her handguns.

The thing wasn't as powerful as the Jackal but packed a bit more power than the Cassull, and Victoria was grateful for that as well.

"We have one thing in common at least," Integra muttered, hearing Victoria's silent gratitude in her mind.

_You know, we have one thing in common._

Victoria bared her teeth in a silent snarl.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she growled to no one.

"What?"

"No, Sir, I'm sorry. It was that vampire. She said something very similar to me before you arrived. That we have something in common," Victoria told her.

"Well, perhaps we shall have the chance to ask her ourselves later. For now, we'd best get not push our luck. I'm sure that as strong as this place is, it won't hold out against the dead weight above for much longer," Integra replied.

They were wise words, and taking hold of each other's wrists, Victoria phased them out of the manor into the cool night air. A few meters off, Malakai spotted them and raised a hand in greeting.

As they approached, Malakai said, "Well don't you both look lovely."

"Shove it, Malakai," Victoria smiled.

Malakai grinned back and turned to Integra.

"It's nice to see you're . . . undead, my dear knight," he said.

Integral smiled wryly, "Indeed."

"Though I do think you could have done something else with your hair."

"You can give me fashion advice later, Vampire, but right now I'd rather we look for Alucard," Integra replied, raising an eyebrow.

Malakai grinned saucily and pointed upward, and they saw the flock of bats circling overhead.

"What's he doing?" Victoria frowned.

"Searching for the Cheshire Cat, I suppose," Malakai replied.

"Cheshire Cat?"

"The mastermind behind all this nonsense."

"The vampire who you found in your rooms," Integral injected smoothly.

Victoria felt her skin raise in gooseflesh. The intruder was the creator of all those horrid monsters lurking around? The one who started all this?

Watching the swarm of bats circle and dive to an area obscured from her sight, she suddenly felt that she had gotten of lucky in her brush with this Cheshire Cat.

* * * * * * *

"I've had the great pleasure of meeting your soulmate," a voice purred from behind him.

Alucard turned.

He grinned at the sight of the Cheshire Cat, her body stretched luxuriously along the length of a branch just overhead.

"I'm sure she was thrilled to meet you as well."

He could smell the familiar scent of his rooms clinging to the Cheshire Cat's skin. She had been down there, and Victoria had likely caught her there. And Alucard could imagine what Victoria's reaction had been.

"We've come to an excellent understanding. I feel we'll be great friends, given time," the Cheshire Cat smiled, sitting up and crossing her legs.

The childish glamour gone, the Cheshire Cat no longer looked like a slender girl dressed in thigh-high striped stockings and a tiny skirt and corset, no longer like an Amy Brown creation minus the wings. Her true self was a tall, dark-haired vampiress with classical vampire-novel beauty. Her eyes were the only thing that truly remained the same. The red-and-black-bullseye irises were unmistakably the eyes of the same vampiress who had attacked Integra.

She was certainly beautiful, a dark siren who seduced vampires and humans alike into an evil and soul-less existence as one of her pet monsters. And she was trying to seduce him now. Though he doubted that she intended to turn him into one of her little toy soul-eaters.

"Oh, I imagine you'll become quite fond of each other."

He slid the barrel of the Jackal down the side of her neck, over the curve of her shoulder. She smiled and closed her eyes, tilting her head back.

Alucard really didn't see how she could have been surprised when he pressed the Jackal to her breast and fired a round directly into her heart.

Her body was blown backwards by the force of the shot and the gaping hole in her body. She seemed just the tiniest bit upset, and he thought it might be because he'd ruined her silky dress.

She couldn't possibly be upset that he'd shot her. Any damned fool would have expected that.

"In fact, I'm sure she'll come to enjoy your company just as much as I do," Alucard said in that obscene, excited growl of his, firing again, not caring that he missed.

The Cheshire Cat shrieked at him and phased, disappearing in a swirl of shadow and nothing.

Alucard threw back his head and laughed.


	22. Chapter 21

Author's Note: You may possibly hate me for this.

Dawn was coming. Lethargy swept over Integra like a blanket and unlike the other vampires, she did not have the will nor the control to overcome it.

"Come, Integra," Alucard said, and she was swept into the shadows.

The vampires spent the daylight hours in the ruins of Hellsing's basement, protected by Alucard and Malakai's safeguards.

They slept like the dead, exhausted and thirsty as they were. Integra felt the thirst gnawing at her, searing pain in her veins, and was grateful for the relief of sleep.

Alucard could feel her hunger and was almost moved to pity. Almost.

He fully intended to see them all fed upon the setting of the sun.

When Victoria finally woke up, Alucard was already gone. He had left hours ago. She frowned.

_Where are you?_

_Hunting_.

He showed her his intended prey and Victoria sucked in a breath.

_Those are our soldiers._

_I'm not going to kill them._

_Not yet, you mean._

She could feel his amusement and it angered her.

_Don't worry, Victoria. There is a rat among the ranks of my former master's valiant warriors. I intend to silence only him._

A . . . rat? Victoria was seized with a sudden fear and bit her lip.

If there truly was a traitor amongst those soldiers, then she had saved his life and endangered all the rest . . .

_Victoria, I want you to leave that place immediately._

_What? But the others are still-_

_Malakai is awake. He will wake the others when I contact him. I want you to leave there and get as far away as you can. Now._

His command left no room for argument, but plenty of room for puzzlement.

_Why?_

No response.

She was going to have to trust him.

* * * * * * *

_Old friend, it's time for you to leave. Collect the others and go._

Malakai sensed the veiled emotion behind Alucard's command and immediately woke Lansing, who still slept peacefully in the coffin-bed beside him.

_What's the rush? _Malakai asked curiously as he phased through the lid and grabbed his shirt from the back of the chair and pulled it on, leaving Lansing to dress herself so that he could wake Integra.

_There is danger. Get them out of there._

_Did you have a destination in mind?_

_Take them home._

Home. To Romania.

_Alright. One of these days, we are all going to have to stop giving you your way all the time, old friend. You're becoming insufferably bossy._

_Feel free to stop obeying me when my commands no longer make sense. Make sure they are fed. I won't have them weakened._

_Bossy bastard._

_If it pleases you to think so._

Then the touch of Alucard's mind was gone, and Malakai, who had continued walking to the rooms where Integra slept, now raised the lid of her coffin-bed and shook her gently, commanding her to wake.

"What?" she asked, bleary-eyed, her body confused as it sensed the hour of remaining daylight.

"We must leave. It's not safe here anymore," Malakai said as he tugged her hand gently, sitting her up and helping her stand as she swungher legs over the edge of the bed.

She obeyed sleepily but quickly, and Malakai left her to dress and found Deyavi, Gavril, and Lansing waiting in the hall, dressed and ready to follow him wherever he would lead them.

* * * * * * *

The rat had a distinct scent that was easy to detect but not as easy to follow, as Alucard walked amongst the sleepy, frightened humans rescued from Hellsing manor. Those who were still awake greeted him with relief, asking him when they could leave and where they would go, and if Integra was still alive.

He ignored them, his finger stroking the trigger of the Jackal and his senses wide open.

It wasn't long before he found the rat.

"Alucard," Adam said, smiling in weary relief.

In answer he pressed the barrel of the Jackal to Adam's forehead, smiling in return.

"Adam," Alucard replied in a low, gentle voice, "I never did take a liking to you. And now I know why."

Adam's eyes widened.

"No-what? What are you talking about?"

Alucard slid the barrel of the Jackal down to Adam's heart. He would destroy Adam as Adam had destroyed Hellsing; attacking their very heart.

"Was it worth it?" he murmured.

"What are you-"

The Jackal pressed into Adam's flesh and he cut short his protest.

"Was it worth it?" Alucard repeated, his voice low and menacing.

Adam dropped the facade of confusion and smiled.

"Worth it? What could be more worth it? You are free now. You are once more the Prince of the Undead. The Hellsing Organization will never recover from this," Adam replied, laughing, and repeated, "What could be more worth it?"

Alucard sneered and his finger squeezed the trigger, and Adam's blood painted the walls of the underground bunker. The sound woke all the sleeping humans within and they cried out in fear.

In death, Adam was revealed for what he really was, what his mistress' magic had hid for so long. The blood and tissue on the wall crumbled to ash along with his slumped body.

Despite their initial fear, upon seeing the body turn to ash, the humans relaxed. They saw Alucard as their savior, protecting them from the enemies in their midst, seeing all the hidden dangers.

They didn't know what he would sacrifice for this small victory.

Even he didn't know.

* * * * * * *

Her first mistake had been her haste in leaving the city. She was weakened and needed to feed and she had known this; now it was too late.

Her second mistake had been her anger. Seeing that "Cheshire Cat" had filled her heart with so much emotion that it had blinded her to the immediate danger and rather than obeying Alucard's command to flee, she had chosen to confront their enemy alone.

Held steadily now in the grip of two Siphons, as she had learned that they were called, she felt their cold, numbing power sinking into her skin. And for a moment she hated herself.

_Alucard!_ She cried, casting her summons out to the night sky.

It didn't matter. Her physical senses were fading, and her vampire powers had faded long before. He would not hear her.

The Cheshire Cat approached her, her movements slow and sensual.

At first the vampiress had appeared to her in some kind of disguise. She looked like some kind of woman-child, a girl of fourteen or so in black and red striped stockings and a black skirt and corset. She'd chattered at Victoria incessantly, trying, she assumed, to pass the time until Victoria's vampire powers were gone. Then, when she could no longer summon the power to shape-shift or call Alucard, the vampiress had dropped the disguise.

Now a fully grown woman walked toward her, graceful, elegant and dark, with a siren's smile on her face.

"Victoria," she murmured, and caressed Victoria's face with the backs of her fingers.

Victoria turned her face away from the Cheshire Cat's touch.

She locked eyes with the dark vampiress.

In a weak, quiet voice, she asked, "Do you think he'll let you live?"

The Cheshire Cat's smile widened and she traced her fingers down Victoria's neck to rest just above her left breast.

"Oh, yes," she replied, leaning in closer, "He will. And more than simply that, my sweetness; he will give me everything I desire."

Victoria could have laughed if she didn't feel so weak, so numb. It was difficult just to take in air so that she could speak; her vision was fading from her, stripped by the Siphon's magic. Her arms and hands were completely numb, and she could hardly move. But she knew that the Cheshire Cat would not allow all feeling to be taken.

She would want Victoria to feel it when she killed her. And there was not a trace of doubt in her mind that the Cheshire cat intended to kill her.

"You said once," Victoria said, struggling for breath, "That we had one thing in common."

The Cheshire Cat vampiress smiled.

"We both have a temper, Seras Victoria. We are ruled by our emotions, and it costs us dearly. It cost me my home, my family. And when I became one of the undead," the painted talons pressed hard against Victoria's chest and she felt pinpricks of blood sliding down her skin, "It cost me my lover."

Victoria closed her eyes. It wasn't as if she could see anyway.

"It will cost you everything."

The talons pierced her flesh and parted bone to reach inside her body. The Cheshire Cat dug her hand deeper into Victoria's chest until her fingers brushed against the pulsing heart.

The Cheshire Cat leaned in closer, mouth grazing Victoria's ear.

"We will have one more thing in common very soon, my sweetness."

Her fingers gently stroked Victoria's living heart and her talons scraped against the tissue.

"Alucard will be as much mine as he was yours."

And the talons tore into the flesh of Victoria's heart and ripped it open.

Victoria's body dissolved into ashes.

For a moment, the Cheshire Cat did not move, her eyes staring off into some unknown world as she stood there, her hands coated with blood, her dress covered in a fine film of ash.

Then she raised a bloodied hand and began to lick away the traces of Victoria's lifeblood.

It wouldn't be long now.

* * * * * * *

Alucard felt it as a knife tearing into his body. An agony he had never experienced before shook him and brought him to his knees.

He gasped her name as he tasted blood on the back of his tongue.


	23. Chapter 22

Author's Note: No reviews for the last three chapters :( that's not good. How am I supposed to know what you think if you don't tell me? I'm going to keep writing this and I estimate this fic is about ready to come to a close, and I have come to an important decision. Upon the closing of this fic, I shall write another story in this series. More info on that later. And, yes, I know, I killed off Seras Victoria. Just bear with me here.

He'd endured these long spells of emptiness before, years passing by without experiencing any kind of emotion. But nothing like this. He had never felt so dead inside, as if his heart had been torn from his body and he was existing now by sheer force of will, left alone in his body with no heartbeat and no purpose.

Alucard knew he should be dead.

After he'd felt her die, he'd tasted blood in his mouth, and his world had gone black. He'd blacked out for the first time in over five hundred years. When he came to, it was all he could do to sit upright, much less stand. He'd immediately gone to search for her ashes and when he'd found them, he'd buried his hands in it and let it sift through his fingers, and sat staring off into the night for an unknown amount of time.

"Vlad."

He turned, saw Malakai leaning on a charred tree trunk, watching him carefully.

Alucard stood, his gaze returning to the pile of ashes as Malakai came to stand beside him.

"I'll kill her."

Malakai felt a deep sorrow in his heart as he looked down upon Victoria's ashes.

"I'll help you find her."

Alucard's wine red eyes met with Malakai's matching ones and he nodded once.

"Why am I still alive?"

Malakai bit his lip.

"Our bond is stronger than we expected, old friend. It kept you from death and will continue to sustain you, for now."

"Hm."

Malakai put his hand on Alucard's shoulder.

"She'll pay very dearly," Malakai breathed, "I almost pity that Cheshire Cat bitch."

Alucard grinned, exposing fang. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the ashes that had once been his soul mate to scatter in the wind.

* * * * * * * *

He slid the cool frames of his glasses onto his face and pulled a new clip to reload the Jackal. The old still had a shot left, but that one shot would be worthless, and would leave him vulnerable when he had to reload.

His heavy boots made little sound as he walked the streets of London. Malakai was quiet beside him, and Alucard knew he was thinking of Lansing. Thinking of what he would be willing to do if he lost her. They both already knew the answer.

Anything.

They could have phased or flown to the hidden caverns where they would begin their search, but there was no need, they weren't in a hurry. They both needed to feed, badly.

It wasn't long before they came upon the park where groups of teenaged humans would linger at night.

Alucard's footsteps became utterly silent. There, clustered about a small grove of trees, was their prey. One human girl was perched atop a branch above the others' heads, the others leaned on the trunks or sat on the ground. There were nine of them there, a large group, and they had been passing round bottles for some time now.

Malakai wrinkled his nose, knowing their blood would taste of alcohol.

They fed quickly and carelessly as they had in their early days.

Come morning, there would be nine corpses carried off in body bags and police cars surrounding the area with sirens and police tape.

But there would be no evidence left behind for them to find.

* * * * * * *

There were no living entities in the hidden cavern where they had found Lansing, and all the monsters had disappeared. Scattered across the floor were the corpses of the humans who had not progressed very far into the change, and had to be left behind.

But upon further inspection they found their pathway.

A door that had perhaps once been cleverly hidden was torn from its hinges and thrown across the room, and they could smell_ her_ scent, recent, from within.

It opened into a tunnel.

So they followed it, and it stretched for miles. They walked silently, quickly. But they didn't need to follow the tunnel all the way to its end, because after about six miles, her scent disappeared, and Alucard spotted a hatch that would open out into the night.

He broke it open carelessly with a sharp press of his hand.

He lifted himself through the opening and Malakai followed, and they found that her scent traced to a dirt path leading upward, towards the cliffs on their right.

Alucard called the Jackal and felt its weight in his hand, and he began to walk.

Malakai glanced back at the ruined opening and scanned the area for any signs of life with his eyes and his vampire senses. Finding nothing, he proceeded after Alucard.

The dirt path took a sharp incline as it reached the very top of the cliffs and they opted to jump rather than walk.

Immediately, they saw her. She wore no glamour as she sat perched atop a rock looking out at nothing. If she sensed them she gave no sign.

She didn't need to. Alucard approached her with swift, smooth strides, and pressed the Jackal against the back of her head.

He couldn't see her smile.

"Turn around," he commanded, his voice low and rough.

There was a menace and fury working its way into him.

She did, slowly, still smiling.

If the fact that she was dressed modestly for once shocked Alucard, then her smile shocked him more.

Fitting clothes to die in, but he'd do something about that smile.

He pressed the Jackal harder against her skull, baring his fangs in a growl.

"Did you think I wouldn't find you?" he asked.

Her smile widened.

"I'd thought you would be here sooner."

Alucard met the remark with a grin of his own, "We had to make a quick stop for some lunch."

She nodded understandingly.

"I hope you ate well?"

"Oh, it was just fine."

His hand reached for her and he grasped her chin roughly. She took no notice of this.

"And you brought a friend!" she exclaimed, peering around Alucard at Malakai.

Malakai grinned obscenely. In a whirl of shadow he phased to Alucard's side and bent at the waist to be at eye level with her.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. It's awfully sad that you'll be leaving us so soon."

She shook her head as best as she was able with Alucard's grip on her face.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Hands reached for Malakai and he darted from their grasping fingers. Alucard turned and pierced the monsters behind them with his hand through their abdomen, and they fell.

He felt the cold sting of their magic being released into the air. He could feel it draining at his own powers, but was unconcerned. Perhaps when he had still been a slave to Integra, he would have, but he wasn't, and he had full access to all his nearly limitless powers.

Even if he was held captive by these beasts for hours, their draining magic would still have little effect.

Malakai returned to Alucard's side immediately.

"That wasn't very gracious of you, as a hostess," he chided the Cheshire Cat vampiress.

She shrugged.

"Even the greatest hostess can make a mistake."

"There are consequences for every mistake we make," Alucard said softly.

He squeezed the trigger of the Jackal, and her flesh exploded and her body was flung back by the force.

He kept firing, fired until the clip was empty. Anger was controlling him now, swept him up in its chaotic embrace. He summoned his hellhounds, and they leapt upon the fallen body, devouring.

And then something sliced at them from below, and they were split in two, and Alucard drew them back into himself.

The ruined body of the vampiress began to regenerate.

She stood, half healed, and her hand reached out for Alucard. In answer he reloaded the Jackal and took aim for her chest where her heart would be if he believed she had one.

"Shoot me as you will," she called to him, her voice echoing strangely, a siren's voice, "I'll keep regenerating. You cannot destroy my body."

"Would you like to make a formal wager of it?" Malakai growled, fangs bared, and Alucard flung out an arm to restrain him as he fought to approach the vampiress.

"You would lose this wager, my heart," she crooned soothingly, as to a child, "My body is no longer merely of flesh and blood, as yours are."

At these words the last of her broken body had healed, and she shook her head, smiling, and her strange eyes locked with Alucard's crimson ones.

"As Seras Victoria's was."

A feral snarl erupted from Alucard's throat and he lunged at her, and she vanished. When she reappeared he fired the Jackal, the bullets tearing her body apart again and again.

He used this not as an attack in itself but a distraction, so that he could approach her himself, and when he got close enough, his grabbed her throat with one hand and dropped the Jackal, reaching for her stomach with the other, pressing his fingers against the soft flesh.

"I'll tear you apart," he said in a soft, deadly voice, "I'll tear the living heart from your body and eat it, Cheshire Cat filth."

She smiled tenderly, and reached up and clasped her hands over the hand that held her throat.

"You cannot destroy my body, my sweet. I've sacrificed much to ensure this. I'm sure you understand. After all, what did you sacrifice to become as you are, the Prince of the Undead? I am the essence of a vampire's powers in a living body. I cannot be destroyed so," she told him gently.

Her gentle calm in the face of his dark fury was madness itself, and for the first time, Alucard saw in her eyes that she was truly insane. Perhaps her body could not be destroyed, but her mind had been twisted till it was broken.

"If you are so powerful, then why do you need him?"

The Cheshire Cat turned her head to look at Malakai, watching them casually from only a few feet away. She didn't seem to be in the least bit surprised to find that Malakai knew something of her intentions. Or perhaps she simply did not care.

"My powers are limited, I admit this freely," she replied, "I can restore my body from nearly nothing, I can create my Siphons to feed my powers and destroy masses of my enemies. I can bind all manner of intelligent creatures with my own blood to serve my will, much the same as you can. I know a number of ancient magics that the humans have forgotten which allow me to manipulate and disguise anyone I wish. But I . . . I am limited."

Malakai sneered.

"In other words, you can create mindless slaved and perform parlor tricks, as any Freak created with a microchip can do. I've spent the last hundred-odd years killing off cockroaches like you. You're just a more resilient roach, that's all," he spat.

She shrugged.

"Believe what you will, my dear."

Malakai disappeared, and materialized with his mouth pressed to her ear and his body pressed close to hers and Alucard's, his hand on the back of her neck.

"I'm certainly not dear to you. I'll be even less so in but a moment," Malakai breathed into her ear, "You have much to answer for. And you didn't answer my question."

The Cheshire Cat shivered, "I need him because of who he is."

"And who do you think he is?"

"He is the Prince of the Undead. He is the Dracula."

Malakai bared his elegantly pointed fangs in a silent snarl.

"And knowing this, still you chose to pit yourself against him? Knowing this, still you chose to destroy his mate and former fledgling? You're even more insane than I gave you credit for."

Alucard felt an agony in his chest that rivaled the pain he'd experienced upon Victoria's death.

"Knowing this, I took the necessary precautions against his rage," she breathed in return, her hands sliding up from Alucard's to touch his chest and face, "And continued with my plans to have him as my own. He will serve me."

Malakai nearly laughed.

"Precautions?"

"I have taken Seras Victoria's lifeblood."

Malakai and Alucard both looked as though they'd been slapped, and just then, a pair of Siphons who had approached Malakai silently from behind took hold of him and wrestled him to the ground. They were as physically strong as he, and his struggles went nearly unnoticed by the sickening monsters. Then the Cheshire Cat's hands became shadow and reached into Alucard's body and took hold of his slow-beating heart.

The Cheshire Cat vampiress began a low, melodious chant that echoed in Alucard's ears.

As she bound herself to him, she took note of the way Malakai thrashed and the way Alucard's gaze returned to him though he should have been completely immobile and unable to look away from her.

So this white-haired vampire was the reason why everything had gone wrong?

From the moment Seras Victoria had died, the dark Prince should have been an empty, malleable shell of a creature, with no will to move or to live. He should have responded to her summons immediately. But he had not, and not only that, he had defied her will and attacked her. And even now he retained such strength.

"Why do you defy me still, oh my Prince?" she breathed.

Alucard snarled at her, though he was weakened.

"Is it that male? What is he to you?"

For a brief moment, Alucard felt sheer panic.

If Malakai were destroyed . . .

It was only their bond of blood which sustained Alucard now, the bond established four and a half centuries ago to save them from the madness that befell all other vampires of their time. The isolation which drove all the other originals to insanity had only been overcome by their exchange of lifeblood, the first ever exchange of blood between vampires. The pact demanded, every few decades or so, that Alucard and Malakai reunite, and that they remain loyal to each other always.

If Malakai were killed, then their blood bond would die with him, and Alucard would be exposed to the full power of the Cheshire Cat vampiress, and would lose his autonomous will to live. He would exist by her command. And what of Lansing? She would share the same fate, upon losing her mate . . .

Then the panic was erased and Alucard turned his gaze from Malakai. He felt emotion radiating out to him from the corner of his mind that Malakai occupied.

"I am the Prince of the Undead," Alucard sneered at her, "Do you think it would be so easy to bend me to your will, nameless filth?"

The vampiress accepted this without question somehow, as though she had immediately forgotten Malakai's existence.

"I have a name," she replied, and resumed her chant.

As if he cared.

Malakai turned his gaze from Alucard and ceased his struggles. He knew he needed to escape form this place. He needed to live, for Alucard's sake, and as much as he would have loved to have a hand in the destruction of the bitch who manipulated the powers against them, he knew that to remain here would mean their own destruction.

He closed his eyes . . . . . . .

Alucard nearly sighed in relief as he sensed Malakai's disappearance.

But then, the chanting ceased and Alucard felt something strange, something utterly familiar winding its way through his soul . . .

She had completed her spell.

She had used her powers and Victoria's lifeblood to bind him to her, much as the Hellsing family had bound him. But rather than restricting his powers, she had tied herself to them. She controlled his powers now, and he was a tool for her personal use, a weapon. This bond made him little more than a gun, like the Jackal.

"My name is Amelia," she whispered into his ear, and then pulled her hands from within his body.

He used all his senses to better understand his bonds. He could still move as he pleased, but if he moved in such a way that displeased her, she could use his own power to punish him. He could feel his power, but he could not reach it unless it was by her will. He could not harm her. He could receive contact from outside minds, but he could not return the contact. He was isolated.

Alucard bared his fangs, and she smiled.

"Now, my sweet, do you understand?"

She touched his face.

"You will serve me."

And Amelia opened her mind to him, and he saw everything.

Below ground, three miles from this place, there was another chamber, containing an altar. Upon this altar lay the body of a male vampire, one of the originals. He had died several centuries ago, and where she had been able to use her powers to preserve his body, she had not been able to return his soul. She had tried everything, from sacrificing blood and souls of humans and vampires alike, to ancient spells to recall his soul, and somehow, long the way, she had gotten the strange idea into her mind that another vampire, a vampire driven mad whose powers were unstable, could take his soul back from Death. And so she had enslaved vampires and spent over three centuries trying to use their powers somehow to summon the lost soul. She had even tried separating the souls of the vampires from their bodies by magic and tying them to herself, and sending them into the afterlife to search for his.

But all this had failed.

And then she had heard of Alucard, whom all had believed dead, tied instead to the Hellsing family.

The most dark and powerful of their kind.

And she believed that he could succeed where others had failed.

Truthfully, Alucard wasn't sure if she was right or not, but something told him that the reason she had failed was the reason the vampire had chosen to die to begin with.

Despite her obsessive stranglehold, she was not his soulmate, never would be, and as such had no power to summon him back from Death.

It was then that he knew.

He had to kill her somehow, of course, that was a given. But perhaps, if he managed to learn how she intended to use his powers . . . he would succeed where she had failed.

Because where she was not this dead vampire lover's true mate . . .

He was Victoria's.

His thoughts were interrupted by her gentle command.

"Come, my sweet. We will go now, and you will do as I ask. Let's go to the altar."

Alucard followed her back to the tunnel and they continued down the path, away from the chamber where her Siphons were created, toward the chamber where the body of her dead lover waited to be awakened.


	24. Chapter 23

Author's Note: As you know, I killed Seras Victoria. This made a lot of people unhappy. Like I said, bear with me. Alucard still has to kill Amelia before he can even think of Seras, and he doesn't even know if it's possible to raise her from the dead. Two more chapters after this, it looks like. :) And info on my new story in the last chapter of this fic, so wait for it :) and hey, REVIEW!!!!!

The altar was made of the same polished black stone as the rest of the chamber. He learned from her incessant chattering that this place was called the Chamber of Solitude, and that the place where the Siphons were made was called the Chamber of Submission. The room below where the Siphons finished their long transformation that opened into the tunnel was The Garden (sickening, but comical). There were no Siphons in the Chamber of Solitude now; she'd told him they were forbidden from entering this place.

She was silent now, though, as she approached the steps leading up to the altar. Alucard waited at the bottom of the steps, having no real desire to follow where she led.

Amelia reached the top, and placed a hand tenderly on the forehead of the body lying still and cold upon the altar. She bent at the waist and peered intently into his eyes, a tiny frown turning the corners of her mouth.

"We're back," she whispered, "I hope you're not too angry with me, I did try to hurry. But there were complications."

Alucard realized she really believed that the empty shell lying there could hear her and sneered.

She turned to him and waved him up. He joined her at the top of the stairs and took a look at the man she intended for him to resurrect. There was no decay on the body, but his chest sported a gaping wound and he knew that the heart had been damaged. Somehow, Alucard had the feeling that the wound was self-inflicted. The woman must truly be insane, if she intended to use him to bring this man back to the world of the living.

"Do you see, Mikhail?" she murmured, stroking back the blonde hair from the pale face, "This is the one I have brought to save you."

Well, that was answer enough.

Amelia turned to Alucard.

"It's time to get started. He's very impatient and I think we've kept him waiting long enough."

Alucard snorted.

"Lead on then, my master."

She nodded, as if unaware of the sarcasm. And he got the feeling that she was, that she was blissfully oblivious to anything that did not fit with her ideal world, where all things gladly bent to her will and she was the focus of adoration and fear.

"Take off that coat, and your gloves. And the tie as well."

He shrugged and dropped the coat, and she kicked it down the stairway, the heavy garment rolling up and landing at the bottom of the stairs. He peeled the gloved from his hands and they vanished into shadow, and he tugged off the tie and let it flutter to the ground.

Amelia reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt, and parted it so that his chest was exposed. He held himself still, forced himself not to shy away from her touch. As much as she repulsed him, and as much as he despised her, it was difficult. He nearly reached out to strike her when she stood back and studied him, her gaze wandering up from his boots, lingering on his muscled, lean abdomen and chest before moving up to his neck where her pupils widened and her lips parted slightly. Then she looked up at his face, and reached up to trace her finger over his mouth. Alucard's crimson eyes narrowed and he tensed, fighting back the urge to rip her throat out only because he refused to submit to weakness and give in to his impulses. Finally Amelia abandoned her hungry examination of him and brought her fingers to her mouth and bit down on her index finger. The scent of her blood reached Alucard and somehow, he was even more repulsed than before.

She reached out and traced her finger over his chest, drawing with her blood symbols that were unfamiliar. He felt a stinging burn following the path of her finger. He relished the pain. Surely it wasn't as bad as the emptiness in his chest where his heart should be.

"You have to enter his mind," Amelia said suddenly as she finished.

"He's dead," Alucard said bluntly, "His mind is as long gone as yours."

"You will see what I mean," she said confidently, "You will be a part of his world."

"I'm sure."

She walked around him to stand on the other side of the altar, and she reached across it to place her fingertips on exact points on Alucard's chest. Her voice poured out in a slow, rhythmic chant.

Alucard's skin tingled where her fingers touched him and he felt that he was moving although he stood still. The room seemed to shift beneath his feet. As her chanting progressed, he saw a mist creep over the floor.

Amelia began tracing symbols on her dead lover's body similar to the one's she'd drawn on Alucard. Then she took Alucard's ungloved hands and placed them on Mikhail's chest.

Very suddenly, he understood what Amelia had meant. The entire room became distorted and grey, the lines blurred and refracted as though he looked at the world through a prism, and looking down at Mikhail, he saw that there was no wound on his chest and that his eyes, bright crimson as his own, were open.

Alucard's soul had been pulled into the world of the dead.

_You must help him find his way back. He will communicate with you, if you can figure out how to reach him. The body lying there is separated from his soul. He will know how to get you both out of there when his soul is returned, _he heard Amelia's voice as if from far away, though in the material world, she was standing right next to him, whispering is his ear.

Alucard leaned over Mikhail and peered into his eyes.

"_Can you hear me?" _he whispered.

There was no response.

Alucard turned from the useless shell and began to walk down the steps of the altar, made uneven and difficult by the distortion of the world of the dead.

Then, from behind him, he heard a sharp intake of breath, a gasp, and a low moan. The sound was agonized, tortured, and Alucard spun around and returned to Mikhail's side.

He reached out and touched a hand to Mikhail's forehead.

Amelia had said that his body was nothing but an empty vessel, and yet as he watched, Mikhail moved on his own, turning his head and locking eyes with Alucard. The fingers twitched and his lips parted and Alucard leaned ever so slightly closer.

"_Help me."_

"_What do you need from me?" _Alucard replied.

"_Free me."_

"_That's why she sent me here."_

"_No . . . from her. Free me from her . . . do not resurrect me."_

Alucard grinned, exposing long, elegant fangs.

"_Do you know why I'm here?" _he whispered.

"_She sent you . . . for me. She is keeping me here. I cannot . . . move on. I am in pain."_

Alucard brought his hand down on Mikhail's throat and squeezed.

"_She destroyed my home to expose me. She destroyed my lifemate to lure me to her. She used my mate's blood to entrap me. All just to resurrect you," _Alucard hissed venomously, _"You do not know pain. She wishes me to return you to the world of the living. If I do this, I will learn how to resurrect my lifemate. What do you have to offer me?"_

Mikhail's eyes closed briefly, then fluttered open again with determination in his gaze.

" _I can show you how to return your love to the world of the living, and, I will help you destroy Amelia, my Prince."_

Alucard released Mikhail's throat.

"_What do you require of me? She owns my powers as if they were her own. I cannot move against her until I find a way around that."_

"_She cannot control you here . . . and she . . . cannot see you. Find my soul and . . . return it to this body. I am drifting and . . . cannot communicate with you . . . much more. It takes all . . . my strength not to lose myself completely."_

Alucard nodded.

"_I will find your soul. And then you will do as you have promised. If you are lying, I will return you to the world of the living. To her."_

Mikhail nodded and the eyes of the body closed, and he turned from the altar without a backward glance in search of Mikhail's lost soul.

The halls of the Chamber were changed greatly from their counterpart in the material world, but Alucard still knew where he was going.

He had a feeling he knew where Mikhail's soul was.

Alucard could not tell how long he had been in the world of the dead, walking the tunnel to The Garden. But it wasn't long before he found it. Unlike in the world of the living, the door to the tunnel in this realm was still firmly attached. He phased through it, having discovered by trying to turn the handle that he could not affect his environment in the world of the dead without draining his strength.

The Garden was full of twisted black flowers of every kind and the irony nearly made Alucard laugh. So maybe Amelia had named the Chambers appropriately after all. Or perhaps this world had changed to suit her. He walked through the room, flowers wilting as he made his way through the room.

And when he entered the washroom, he found that unlike in the real world, there was a spiral staircase that led upward into the Chamber of Submission. So he ascended the stairs and what he saw in the upper Chamber made his eyes widen.

The Chamber held prisoners. Most of them male, all of them held in various forms of torture, frozen in agony, their torturers just as unmoving. And even the captors had looks of pain on their faces. It was worse than the sight of Siphons hanging from the ceiling in The Garden.

Alucard continued forward. As he walked through the room, he studied the still and silent ones who occupied it, and found that he recognized some of the faces.

Abigail.

Integra's youngest son, Isaac.

Numerous Hellsing soldiers.

And even Adam was here, a captor rather than a prisoner.

The look of sheer torment on his face said that it didn't matter much in the end.

Moving on, a strange pull took hold of him, a voice his ears couldn't detect calling him. Demanding that he listen. He followed this pull and it led him past the frozen forms of those he began to recognize as Amelia's accomplices and victims.

In the center of the room there was, elevated on a wooden platform much like a gallows, a lone figure on its knees.

Mikhail.

Alucard approached the platform, studying him.

His head was bent in defeat, his hands raised and outstretched before him. They cradled a gently throbbing heart. Blood covered him nearly from head to toe.

He was alone on the platform.

His personal torture was his isolation, reflecting his life, and his own emotional agony. He was isolated from the other victims in this form, heart in hand.

Mikhail had died to escape Amelia and found that she would not release him, even in death. He had never found his soulmate, because of her. He was doomed to spend eternity alone.

Standing upon the platform, Alucard looked at Mikhail's sad, defeated soul for a long moment. Then he reached out his hand, gently touching the still-beating heart that Mikhail's hands cradled.

The frozen form of Mikhail threw back its head and let out a long, inhuman scream.

And then vanished.

There was blood where he had knelt and from the smell, Alucard knew it was Victoria's.

_Was she here?_

At that moment, Mikhail's living body materialized before him, and Alucard knew he had succeeded.

"_I gave you a promise to help you. I will keep it."_

Mikhail beckoned Alucard to follow, and led him down the steps to the platform and into the sea of tormented souls.

"_I owe you this," _Mikhail said as he walked, _"Her blood is on my hands. So is theirs."_

He gestured to the other frozen forms around them.

"_But I can do nothing for them. It would take one such as you to help them the way you will help your lover, and for them, their chance is long gone. Amelia must die for what she has done here to be undone. And even after she is gone, they cannot return to the world of the living."_

Mikhail turned and soon they came upon the figure Mikhail sought.

Victoria.

"_She is the only one who can be resurrected. But even for this, Amelia must still be destroyed."_

Her body was positioned like a pagan blood offering, a a gaping wound on her chest, her teeth clenched and her eyes squeezed shut in a grimace of pain. Blood poured from a puncture wound on her neck, the only thing moving in a world of stillness.

The puncture wounds caused by Alucard's bite. His mark.

"_What must I do?"_

"_You must take her soul into your body."_

Alucard reached for Victoria, stroking her face for a moment, her tormented figure unresponsive. Then he slid his fingers down to her neck, and pulled, the chains that held her still fragmenting into nothing and he lifted her. He brought his mouth to the puncture wounds on her neck and began to feed.

Her blood tasted as it had when she was human, the first time he had bitten her, and he recognized that her soul was still very human in many ways, even after all this time.

But unlike previous times, he did not stop as his senses told him that he was reaching the danger point. Alucard continued to draw her blood into his body. In the instant when he knew she had been drained completely, her soul became insubstantial and entered his body. He felt a strange sense of wholeness.

"_Be warned,"_ Mikhail murmured, placing his hand on Alucard's shoulder, _"If Amelia discovers her soul within you, she will destroy you. If you die in your battle with her, your mate's soul will leave your ashes and move on into the next world, and you will come here. And then no one can save you."_

"_I understand."_

"_Now, come with me. I shall show you how you will kill Amelia."_

And he found himself back in the Chamber where Mikhail's spirit-world body had once lain, and Mikhail led him to the altar.

"_Lay down on the altar."_

Alucard did so and Mikhail placed his hand over Alucard's heart, closing his eyes.

"_To kill Amelia, you will have to return to the world of the living in my body. To return to your own body, you just need to come in contact with it. But before you can do that, you have to tear out her heart. If you tried to do this inside your own vessel, she would use your bond of servitude to stop you and would probably destroy you. Tearing out her heart will not kill her. You need her own magic to do that, and I assume you have a source?"_

Alucard thought of Deyavi and Gavril and nodded.

"_Yes, I do."_

"_You will know what to do when the time comes."_

Mikhail smiled, eyes still closed.

"_When you enter my body, my soul will be pushed from this place and into the next life. I will be free of her."_

And then he pressed his fingertips into Alucard's chest and into his body, and Alucard felt as though he had been flung into a whirlwind.

When the wild spinning sensation passed, he found that it was dark, warm, and that no matter how hard he listened, he could not hear a heart beating in his chest.

He knew that he was in Mikhail's body.

* * * * * * * *

In that same instant, Deyavi heard a silent voice singing within her very veins and knew it was time.

"Deyavi."

Alucard's voice called to her.

She smiled. After Malakai had told her what had happened on the cliffs, she had known he was on the right path, but had found herself unsure for a time. It was so easy to get lost in the land of the dead.

But she heard his voice clearly, felt it in her very soul, and knew he had escaped. She also knew how.

It was time. It was time. It was finally almost over, one way or the other.

She looked at Gavril, and he put a hand on her cheek, stroked her face with his fingertips.

"We should go," Deyavi said quietly, and Gavril nodded, smiling.

"We mustn't keep the Prince waiting," he replied.


	25. Chapter 24

Author's Note: There is but one more chapter left to this fic. It's been a hell of a ride! Now let's watch our Prince of the Undead in his battle against the Cheshire Cat . . .

Opening his eyes brought a whole new world into his vision, a world of bight color and focus. He hadn't realized how much his journey into the world of the dead would affect him. In this body that was not his own, Alucard felt . . . disoriented. It was literally an out-of-body experience and he found that it was just as bizarre as the stories said, though he was sure no one had had an experience quite like this.

He sat up, scraps of shirt that clung to this body parting to reveal a chest wound that was nearly healed.

"Mikhail . . ."

Alucard saw Amelia looking at him dreamily, leaning in close to inhale his scent.

The wound closed completely. The silence in his chest was unnerving.

This body had no heart.

He had no heart.

And yet somehow he could feel Victoria inside this body with him, asleep and unresponsive to the soft brush of his mind as he reached out to her.

Alucard turned and swung his legs over the edge of the altar and stood. Amelia placed her hands on his chest to steady him though he did not need it. The strength had returned to this body quickly. But he had to pretend, in order for this to work, and he placed his hand over Amelia's when her fingers stroked the fading scar on his chest.

"Mikhail," Amelia breathed, "I've been waiting."

"I know," he replied, "I cannot tell you what torment lies in the world of the dead. All for you, Amelia."

Amelia frowned. A furrow of confusion appeared between her brows.

He touched her face and she relaxed her expression. Alucard leaned closer to her in Mikhail's body, his mouth grazing her ear as he spoke. His hand slid down her body to her ribcage beneath her breast.

"All for you," he repeated.

And he drove his fingers into her chest, between her ribs, to her heart. Amelia's scream echoed with her powers as it raged out of control, leaking from the wound along with her blood, shaking the Chamber.

"MIKHAIL!"

His hand dug deep into her chest and when he felt the pulsing heart beneath his fingers he took hold of it, and pulled it from her body, blood spattering his chest and hands. The organ continued to throb as he took her living heart from her body and pushed her back with the other hand, her body falling past the altar steps and onto the smooth, polished floor.

Alucard turned and saw his own body lying on the floor by the altar, crumpled and forgotten by Amelia though he would have thought she'd notice when he didn't wake. He reached out and touched his hand to his own chest, and felt an instant and powerful pull, and then seconds later he found himself looking at Mikhail's body as it crumbled to ashes. He was disoriented from the transfer and sat dizzily for a moment.

Power coursed through him, rich and dark and sweet. It was intoxicating and it took a moment for him to understand what had happened. Victoria's death had taken something from him. With her here in his body he was whole, complete, and his vampire soul was awakened to the fullest, looking at the world through his eyes with a hunger for death.

He stood, and picked up the bloody heart from where it lay amongst Mikhail's ashes. Amelia's struggle to rise caught his eye and he watched her, watched the look of fury on her face, twisting her beauty into something evil and terrifying.

_Deyavi! _Alucard called as he leaped down the steps and toward Amelia, his hand grasping her throat and pressing her back against the floor.

And she was by his side, kneeling atop Amelia's body, crushing her as she screamed. Gavril was next to them an instant later.

"Drink my blood, my Prince," Deyavi said, tearing the buttons from the collar of her buttondown shirt and exposing her neck to him.

Amelia screamed again and shoved upward with all her strength, sending the three vampires flying across the room as she protested her fate.

"This is not happening!" she screamed, "No!"

Gavril was on his feet in an instant and approached her from behind, grabbing hold of her arms and restraining her, ignoring the violent cries that sent her power reverberating from the walls.

Deyavi approached Alucard and he pulled her into the crook of his arm and sank his fangs into her pale neck. Her blood was sweet, but he could taste the acid of Amelia's magic. He drank deeply.

Amelia thrashed wildly. She could feel the connection of the power in her body to the magic in Deyavi's blood, the magic Alucard was consuming.

Very soon, Deyavi's body began to slacken and Alucard supported her, pulling his mouth from her neck and licking the wound closed. He gently lowered her to the floor and his eyes met Gavril's. He would have to drink Gavril's blood as well, but it would be impossible with him restraining Amelia.

Then he remembered the heart. He had nearly dropped it when Amelia had sent him flying and he had forgotten it completely while drinking Deyavi's blood. It still throbbed gently, cradled in his hand.

He bit deeply into the heart and the acid-tasting blood poured into his mouth. Her lifeblood.

She screamed and her scream pierced Gavril's body and tore his skin.

Alucard tore the heart with his teeth and her struggles became weaker. Gavril let her drop the floor and pressed his foot into her back. With her subdued for the moment, Alucard walked to where Gavril stood. He took Gavril's wrist and bit deeply, settling for this because he could not get close enough to bite into his neck. Gavril's blood tasted the same as Deyavi's.

As he drank, he noticed a strange feeling growing in his chest. It was heavy and heady. He knew it was his body absorbing the darkness in the blood.

He did not take as much from Gavril as from Deyavi; Amelia's struggles were growing stronger as she recovered from his attack on her most vital organ. Quickly he stepped away as she sliced at him with her painted talons.

Alucard began to change. The shadows grew from within his body, shredding his skin from the inside. They caressed him, and slid over him to replace the skin. His grin was maniacal, exposing fang obscenely. The strange power was buzzing within every inch of his body.

Amelia's struggles increased.

"NO! NONO! WHERE IS MIKHAIL?? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE????"

Gavril's attempts to restrain her failed as she grew more enraged. Her sanity was failing.

"What's wrong, Cheshire Cat?" Alucard mocked in his obscene, excited growl.

"WHERE IS MIKHAAAIIIIIILLL???"

"Your lover has deserted you," he returned, "Apparently he'd rather die than return to this world of the living to be with you."

She snapped. Her feet struck the floor, cracking the stone floor and sending shards flying. Amelia lifted her body violently in her thrashings and Gavril was sent flying, his body striking the stone walls.

She rolled off her back and lunged at Alucard, slashing at him with her talons. Her form was out of control, shifting back and forth between her true form and her glamour.

He took the hit directly to his body, and the shadows began pulling her in, absorbing her into his body.

His blackened arms began to swell and shift, and his skin split, crimson eyes rolling about wildly as a hellhound opened its jaws.

Amelia screamed and she swiped through his body, freeing her upper body from the shadows.

"Have I frightened you, Cheshire cat?" he growled, laughing.

She tried to bite him, and the shadows filled her mouth. The hellhound snapped its teeth at her and she snarled at it, Alucard's obscene grin growing wider as his body continued to change, and hellhounds began to mold from the shadows of his body, separating from him.

Amelia's thrashing finally freed her from Alucard's growing mass of shadows and demons and she flung herself away, hissing like a startled cat.

"Why won't you fight, Cheshire Cat?" Alucard snarled, "Don't you have any real power? Does your talent lie only in cheap parlor tricks?"

"I still own you," she hissed venomously, "I can destroy you and everything you hold dear."

In an instant he was behind her, his arm around her throat.

"You already did," he whispered.

Her magic was pulsing strongly through him. He pressed his free hand to her abdomen, sliding his fingers along the ridge of her ribcage. His thumb split the soft flesh and dug into her, hooking underneath her xiphoid process, his other fingers sliding between her other ribs.

"I've got nothing to lose," he sneered.

She cried out as he curled his fingers around her ribs, gripping tightly.

"You, on the other hand, have your life," he said, "But not for long."

He yanked hard and tore her ribcage, opening her torso and exposing the tender insides.

"I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU!" she shrieked as hellhounds leapt upon her and her exposed organs were torn by bloody teeth and claw.

"You should have," he grinned, "Your mistake."

Alucard slid his hand up from the base of her skull and stabbed his fingers into her strange eyes. His fingertips pierced deeply into the sockets and her magic which lived inside his body began to empty into her. Too weak to control it, her own power began to turn on her.

It was as if the world of the dead was opening to them again, and swallowed her up. She became colorless and distorted. Her pale silver-white skin split and blood spilled from within, and she began to cry tears of blood.

"Mikhail," she whispered brokenly, "It was all for you."

Alucard sneered.

As her magic and Alucard's hellhounds tore her apart from within, Amelia grew quiet.

Alucard dropped her slack form and turned away. A hand grabbed his boot and he turned his head to look at Amelia.

"This won't bring her back," Amelia said, smiling, her lips bloody, "As Mikhail has been taken from me, so was she taken from you."

Alucard knelt beside her and spoke the words that would destroy her.

"Mikhail left you of his own free will," he said softly, "He tore out his own heart to escape you. He allowed me to take his body so that I could kill you. He was not taken from you; he ran away."

Amelia shuddered and was still, a low moan escaping her.

Alucard stood and kicked her hand away as she became dust.

He turned his attention to the Siphons outside, now motionless and silent. Their maker had been destroyed and the killing magic was gone from them; they were broken toys. With a bitter smile Alucard sent the hellhounds to feast on the ruined flesh.

It was over.


	26. Chapter 25

Author's Note: This is the last chapter!! ENJOY! Info about my next fic at the end of the chapter.

"She's gone," Deyavi whispered.

Staring at the pile of ashes, she fell to her knees, numb with disbelief. Gavril knelt beside her.

Deyavi turned her head to look at him, tears in her eyes, and he placed his cheek against her shoulder.

"It's over," he replied quietly.

Alucard stood staring at the altar for a long time.

Finally, Deyavi rose and turned to him.

"He didn't tell you everything you needed to know," Deyavi said, "Did he?"

Alucard shook his head, not looking at her.

"You're stuck at halfway, my Prince. You've got her soul, but no body," she said, taking a step up towards the altar, "The method that Amelia used to rebuild Mikhail's body died with her."

"Yes," he replied, their eyes meeting, "but you know a way, don't you?"

Deyavi nodded, smiling sadly.

* * * * * * *

Alucard had left them alone for a time.

"I'm ready, my heart," Gavril whispered in response to her expression, "We have done what we were sent to do. I am at peace."

Deyavi rested her head against his chest, safe in the cradle of his arms.

"_It's my fault."_

They saw the transparent, shimmering form of Mikhail sitting atop the altar, looking down at them sadly.

"You could not have known," Deyavi told him softly, "it was not your fault she lost the baby."

"_A child that should never have been conceived. If I had not remained at her side . . ."_

Gavril happened to agree, but said nothing.

"No one could have predicted that the miscarriage would drive her to this," Deyavi replied, shaking her head.

"_It doesn't change anything. I knew it was not . . . that she was not my true mate. I stayed with her, and because I stayed, the isolation grew and took her to the edge of madness."_

"She didn't care that you were not her true mate, Mikhail. She wanted you. Do you really think she would have let you walk away? I have known her since childhood, Brother. I know her flaws as I know my own."

Mikhail's ghostly form sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"_Because of this . . . so many lives. Yours. And the Prince's mate . . ." he reflected, "Our parents charged me with your care, and instead, I became the cause of all this death, including yours."_

Deyavi shrugged.

"We have the chance to remedy it now," she said.

Mikhail's gaze held infinite sorrow as he looked at her.

"_You have so much living left to do. You're so willing to give it all up . . . you're too good."_

"No, Brother. Our time was up the moment Amelia took her last breath," Gavril replied, smiling, "It's our Prince who has so much left to do in this world."

Mikhail grinned crookedly and ghosted down to where they sat, and pressed his lips to Deyavi's forehead.

"_I'll be waiting."_

* * * * * * *

Alucard turned at the sound of his name and returned to the Chamber. Deyavi sat atop the altar, holding Gavril's hands in hers. He walked cautiously up the stairs.

"You aren't leaving us so soon, are you?"

The three vampires followed the sound of Malakai's voice to where he stood at the entrance.

Deyavi smiled crookedly, "It's that time. There's someone waiting to be set free, and it's rude to make her wait too long."

Malakai nodded and stepped back to lean against a wall.

"You'll make a great welcoming committee," Alucard grinned at him, and Malakai stuck his tongue out at the dark-haired vampire.

Deyavi shook her head, still smiling, "My Prince, let's begin."

Alucard turned back to them and Deyavi took his hands.

"You'll have to forgive me for this," she said wryly, and pressed her mouth to his.

Immediately Alucard felt Victoria's unresponsive presence within him being drawn out.

Deyavi released him and then Gavril, slicing his fingers, began to paint her skin with strange symbols.

When Gavril had finished this he opened the collar of his shirt and exposed his throat to Alucard.

"Blood of my blood," he whispered to Deyavi, "I give of myself. I give freely that this No-Life King should be whole. Do I have your consent?"

"You have my consent and my blessing."

Alucard pulled Gavril's neck to his mouth and bit deeply. He drank until Gavril pushed at his chest and them released him.

"Soul of my soul," Deyavi said to Gavril," I give of myself. I give freely that this No-Life King should be whole. Do I have your consent?"

"You have my consent and my blessing."

Deyavi took Alucard's hand.

"You must reach in and take hold of my heart," she told him, "And you must drink my lifeblood."

He plunged his hand into her chest and pulled her living heart form her body. Alucard brought the gently throbbing organ to his mouth and sank his elegantly pointed fangs into the tissue. He tasted her blood, now pure. A pained expression flitted across her face and Gavril took her hand. After a moment, Alucard gently pushed the heart back into her body and the wound closed.

Deyavi was breathless with pain for a moment.

When she finally could speak, she told him, "Repeat after me."

Alucard nodded.

"I present the sacrifice of this blood and this heart to return to me the other half of myself."

"I present the sacrifice of this blood and this heart to return to me the other half of myself."

The raw scar of Alucard's bite upon Gavril's neck began to burn and smoke. Deyavi's chest wound oozed blood profusely and her eyes became a charcoal black color.

"I mold the vessel of the heart and call on the vitality of this blood to bind the soul of my lifemate to this earth as I am bound."

"I mold the vessel of the heart and call on the vitality of this blood to bind the soul of my lifemate to this earth as I am bound."

A ripple passed through the air, distorting Deyavi and Gavril in Alucard's vision. For a moment, Deyavi appeared to them as someone all too familiar . . .

When the distortion passed, Deyavi gritted her teeth in obvious pain as a grinding noise came from within her body.

Gavril whispered to her soothing words in an unfamiliar language, and she smiled weakly at him.

"Let the pain of death be turned back, and back, and let this living flesh become the guiding light of the lost soul. Let the lifemate of the vessel become the anchor and the fuel for the fire."

"Let the pain of death be turned back, and back, and let this living flesh become the guiding light of the lost soul. Let the lifemate of the vessel become the anchor and the fuel for the fire."

This time, the change was real. Deyavi's body began to shift. Blonde hairs began to grow amongst the long black strands and the dark hairs began to fall from her scalp. Her bone structure itself began to change, and soon, Alucard was looking at the very image of Victoria, her teeth clenched tightly in pain. Alucard was reminded of how he had found her in the world of the dead, and felt pity. He turned to look at where Gavril had stood and saw . . . nothing.

"Where is he?" he growled, alarmed.

Deyavi shook her head, "We must finish this."

"I call on my dark blood to draw out the soul of my lifemate, Seras Victoria,whom I created and for who's life I am responsible. I draw her out from her sleep and into the consciousness of this vessel, willingly given."

"I call on my dark blood to draw out the soul of my lifemate, Seras Victoria,whom I created and for who's life I am responsible. I draw her out from her sleep and into the consciousness of this vessel, willingly given."

Deyavi smiled at him.

"I have only a moment now, my Prince. If this works, soon you will have your love, and Gavril and I will be cast into the next life as we are meant to. As we should have long ago," she told him.

Alucard nodded.

"You are very brave," he replied.

The formerly dark-haired vampiress gave him one last smile and then her eyes closed, and her body became limp. Alucard caught her to prevent her head from striking the stone and lowered her gently upon the altar.

* * * * * * *

Malakai cradles Lansing's head in his lap and stroked her hair as she napped upon the floor of the Chamber. It was two hours later, and still there had been no change in the body of Seras Victoria which lay still atop the altar. Integra sat cross legged on the floor, hands folded beneath her chin.

Alucard had not moved from the top stair beside the altar.

"This is taking too long," Malakai muttered, "Something's wrong."

Integra nodded thoughtfully as her eyes stared at nothing.

"She would not have simply left it like this. Deyavi would have told Alucard if there was anything left to be done," Integra replied offhandedly, "We must be patient."

Their patience was tested as hours turned to days and the days turned to a week and a half. They had not left the Chamber except to feed.

Malakai stood outside, looking up at the sky.

The moon was full and red, lighting the world in a crimson haze. It made his heart pound and his body restless.

"Come inside."

He turned and saw Lansing standing at the upper entrance to the Chamber. Following her inside, he took her hand.

She led him up the steps to the altar.

"It is time for this soul to be wakened as the body is," she said, and pressed her mouth to his neck, blood spilling from her lips as she pulled away.

Malakai's blood spilled down his neck and stained his shirt. Lansing bent over Victoria's body and let the blood spill from her mouth onto Victoria's face. A drop slid into Victoria's mouth.

In an instant Alucard was there.

"I felt something."

Malakai looked at Lansing, who smiled. He gestured at Alucard.

Alucard bit deeply into his own wrist and held it over Victoria, letting his blood drip in a steady stream into her mouth.

She began to cough.

Her eyes fluttered open.

* * * * * * *

Romania was beautiful.

Malakai and Alucard stood upon the battlements of the old castle looking out into the night.

They had missed their home.

Integra was developing in her powers rather quickly since their arrival, and Lansing was completely at peace there in Malakai's ancestral home.

Victoria's healing process was coming along rather slowly, but that was all right.

It was to be expected for a vampire with no memory.

It had taken time to convince her panicked mind that they were not a threat to her . . . it had taken even longer for Alucard to win her trust.

She was afraid of him, having no recollection of all their years together.

But things were progressing nicely. She was much the same person as before, having regained much of her personality in the time they had been in Romania. But in regards to Alucard, she was still not completely comfortable, and even months after they had brought her to the ancient castle, she still slept in a separate coffin.

Something Alucard intended to change.

He watched her from his high vantage point in silence, seeing her smile happily at Lansing, whom she trusted without reservation. It would be a lie to say he wasn't slightly envious of her and Malakai for the joy and comfort they gave her.

Something she needed, and he could not provide. Not yet.

But still she responded to the call of his mind as he phased down into the lower levels of the castle, to where his coffin waited.

* * * * * * * *

Victoria heard his call, and bit her lip.

_Seras Victoria . . ._

He frightened her, and she wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the immense darkness in his heart, the sheer dominance of his vampire soul over what little humanity remained in him. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her as if he knew every dark, secret corner of her mind.

Either way, she was reluctant to answer his call. And yet she did so.

Phasing into the dim belly of the castle, where she knew he waited, Victoria realized that she had spent the first two weeks of her stay in this part of the castle, while her body recuperated and her mind healed from the trauma of resurrection.

The only thing she remembered before that was a feeling of warmth, safety. Of being utterly and entirely whole and complete for the first time. And then being torn away from the safety into a body that was barely alive . . .

And he had cared for her then, this dark-haired vampire who knew her though she did not recognize his face.

He was waiting. Sitting on the edge of the open coffin with a thoughtful, patient expression as his eyes stared off into nowhere. When he heard her, he looked up.

"Victoria," he said, nodding.

"Alucard," she replied uneasily.

He stood and crossed the space between them, bending so that he was on eye level with her.

"Why are you afraid of me?"

She nearly stopped breathing because of his closeness.

Why did she feel this way? She didn't know him, though Malakai and Lansing insisted she did . . . if she was really his mate, wouldn't she remember? Especially something so important . . .

"I don't know you," she replied shakily.

"I can prove that you do, Seras Victoria."

Without a pause he pressed his mouth to her neck where there were scars. Scars that he had supposedly put there so long ago.

He bit deeply into her neck and she shivered as his arms moved around her, holding her close against his body.

"And I know you better than anyone else," he whispered as he began to lick long, lazy strokes up her neck to her jaw, smearing her blood across her skin.

Her heartbeat, normally slowed into near nonexistence, began to race.

"You are mine," he said.

And he bit down again, and she saw his memories of them. Of seeing her for the first time as a human, his memories of them being human together, of every night and day spent together over the course of nearly forty years . . .

"Why can't I remember?" she asked no one, choking back a sob as he released her.

Alucard couldn't answer because he didn't know himself. Rather than try, he slid his arms around her waist again and pressed his mouth to hers, smearing her blood across her lips.

She kissed him fiercely, angry at the world and at him.

"I have never hurt you, Seras Victoria. I never will. But you belong to me, and I will not allow you to take what is mine," he growled, his mouth grazing her ear.

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life by myself. You're all I've got," she whispered back.

Just like she had at the beginning . . .

_I just don't want to be alone_ . . .

"You are not alone, Police Girl. You were never alone from the beginning."

He kissed her again, possessively.

And she remembered.

The words reminded her of the day in his room where she had confessed all her foolish thoughts and hopes to him and found him accepting.

The kiss reminded her of the first, when he had surprised her with his response to her terrified, confused mind.

_Are you ready to be mine, Seras Victoria? Forever?_

The coffin was not as high-tech as the one from the manor, but they spent the day in it anyway, rejoicing in recovered memory and renewed life.

Soon after, the rumors began to spread.

Rumors of a secret organization in Britain, which hunted dangerous and evil creatures of the darkness. An organization which had been destroyed.

And rumors of a small band of vampires, roaming Europe, continuing the work of this organization with a different purpose. Vampires who protected the interests of vampires by protecting humans from the FREAK vampires, ghouls, and other strange monsters. Vampires who left an unending trail of blood in their wake, but were never found by any anti-vampire group on any continent, no matter how outrageous their activity.

These tales never really died, and so became accepted as simple truth, and remained unspoken. The night belonged to vampires, and the world was just going to have to deal with it.

Author's Note: Yes, I'm ending it here! Thanks everyone for the support, patience, and compliments! Can I get a final round of reviews, please? Also.

My next story will be a prequel to Silent Night, which I have yet to choose a title for. Please add me to your author alerts so you won't miss out on it when I finally start posting.

This story will follow the lives and mischief of Alucard and Malakai in the years before Alucard was captured by Hellsing. I'm very excited to write this. There won't be any romance; there will be a bit about Trinity (read Silent Night if you haven't already), and a little about the brides, but there will be no Seras because obviously, she wasn't born yet during the time this will take place. Lansing was as yet unknown to Malakai so she will not be in it either.

So again, thanks everyone for the love and support, and please everyone give one last review, ok? And add me to Author Alerts so's ya don't miss out on the next fic.


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